By removing the gold standard we allowed our identities to be stolen
collectively as citizens. If we think that those who advocated lifting
the standard were well-intentioned, check out this quote from the man for whom Keynesian economics was named, John Maynard Keynes (context below):
"By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate,
secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their
citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate
arbitrarily; and while the process impoverishes many, it actually
enriches some."
~John Maynard Keynes [A.K.A. Evil Overlord]
Removing a gold standard is a deliberate attempt of a government to
loot the savings of a nation. Ours was lifted in 1971 and since then
our currency has been tied to nothing. As Alan Greenspan noted in 1966,
"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect
savings from confiscation through inflation." As long as the government
isn't required to keep to some sort of anchor (be it a gold standard or
other), they need only write out IOUs and US taxpayers are on the hook
for payment.
It has become so egregious that recently the Federal Reserve gave out
two trillion dollars in loans, and refused to disclose the recipients
to us, their lender. It's cockiness to the nth degree. It's like a
thief has stolen our credit cards and is racking up hundreds of
thousands of dollars worth of debt that we cannot pay back. Except it's
legal.
The following is excerpted from: "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard"
1) During the 1939–1942 period, the UK depleted much of its gold stock
in purchases of munitions and weaponry on a "cash and carry" basis from
the U.S. and other nations.[citation needed] This depletion of the UK's
reserve convinced Winston Churchill of the impracticality of returning
to a pre-war style gold standard. To put it simply the war had
bankrupted Britain. John Maynard Keynes, who had argued against such a
gold standard, proposed to put the power to print money in the hands of
the privately owned Bank of England.* Keynes himself said: "By a
continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly
and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By
this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily;
and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some".
* Replace "Bank of England" with "Federal Reserve Bank" and that's us
2)Alan Greenspan, at that time the Chairman and President of
Townsend-Greenspan & Co., Inc., an economic consulting firm in New
York, argued in 1966, before the advent of monetarism, that, “…under
the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an
economy's stability and balanced growth… The abandonment of the gold
standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking
system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit… In the absence
of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from
confiscation through inflation.”[11]
Blucie.com 
