Paul Volcker inflicted real pain on millions of Americans and was branded a hero for doing it. The Federal Reserve spent the 1970s printing money to cover political promises. Nixon killed the gold standard in 1971, and every administration after him pressured the Fed to keep rates low. By 1980, CPI inflation hit 13.5 percent. You were watching your savings evaporate in real time. Volcker became Fed chairman in August 1979 and jacked the federal funds rate to 20 percent by June 1981. Unemployment climbed to 10.8 percent in December 1982. Farmers drove tractors to Washington. Homebuilders mailed two-by-fours to the Fed as a protest. The howling was deafening. Every critic demanding easier money in 1981 was demanding that you absorb more hidden taxation through continued inflation. The recession came due for a decade of monetary fraud. Mises identified this mechanism precisely: credit expansion creates artificial booms that require liquidation. The bad investments made during the inflationary 1970s had to clear. Factories, farms, and businesses built on cheap-money illusions needed to fail so real capital could reallocate. By 1983, inflation sat at 3.2 percent and real growth returned at 4.5 percent. The correction worked because Volcker held the line against enormous political pressure from Congress and the Reagan White House alike. Discipline cost two years of misery. Capitulation would have cost a generation.