The Fed simply devalued the dollar to keep the cost of post '73 OPEC crisis oil down.

This sustained heavy and extraordinarily polluting industries in the US until the nineties.

Coincidentally, reducing the influence of unionized labor also reduced the potential for employee health pressures on polluting industries. If I still had the feeds, I'd love to back traces how much this propped up the largest commercial banks and insurance companies who, coincidentally when environmental protection began to matter, did away with the prohibition of gambling with consumer deposits and abolished Glass Steagall, ushering in the last twenty years of economic horror story.