This can be a touchy subject. On the one hand, the author is correct that the dollar's aim is not to store value long-term. This is a common misconception about money in general. Value can be stored in a number of things. Money's most useful purpose is to facilitate commerce and that happens on shorter time frames. The dollar succeeds at that. However, eternal debasement does have negative consequences. Incomes have not kept up with debasement, so $ HAS lost purchasing power in the aggregate, but it's not 96%. People repeating that claim ignore the fact that wages are up significantly over that same span, though still trailing. So it's not 96%. It's not even 90%. In 1900 the average American worker made about 450 a year. Now the median income is 80,000. As ever, the truth lies somewhere in the unsexy middle between extreme view points