Nice page, but it doesn't seem to try very hard to create a framework to answer the question it asks. It ends with a Hayak quote which is interesting, even though it's taken out of context. You could argue taking the dollar off the gold standard is the reason metrics go wonky starting in '71. But some of the metrics go wonky slightly later after the NYC credit crisis. The suez canal was more or less blocked from '67 through '75, at a time when oil might have been more important economically than gold. And the US had to start paying it's VietNam debt during a period of high inflation.

I guess what I'm saying is there's probably no one factor that made '71 special, but a collection of factors; a "perfect storm" of economic sadness.