📅 On This Day
Nixon Shock of 1971 Untethers Dollar From Gold Forever
On August 15, 1971, President Nixon announced the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at the fixed rate of $35 an ounce, shattering the Bretton Woods system that had anchored international finance since 1944. Floating exchange rates and fiat currency followed — and with them, inflation became a permanent, structural concern for every income investor. For dividend holders, the lesson endures: a payout's real value is only as durable as its purchasing power.
The day the gold anchor lifted, the case for dividend growth over fixed income quietly became a great deal stronger.
🇺🇸 US
Source: Wikipedia; Federal Reserve History
🌍 Around the World
Brown's 1997 Pension Tax Raid Still Haunts UK Equity Markets
Before July 1997, UK pension funds could reclaim tax credits on dividends under the imputation system, making British equities unusually attractive for retirement savings. Chancellor Gordon Brown abolished that credit — closing a roughly GBP 5 billion annual gap in the public finances — and pension funds responded by rotating heavily into bonds, withdrawing a vast pool of patient capital from London's markets. Decades on, UK equities still trade at persistent valuation discounts to US and European peers, a legacy many attribute to that domestic pension bid never fully returning.
Foreign investors face 0% withholding tax on UK dividends today, but the structural damage from 1997 lingers in valuations.
🇬🇧 GB
Source: UK Parliament research briefing SN00581; Channel 4 FactCheck on pensions
🔥 Dividend Streak
York Water Has Paid Shareholders Every Year Since 1816
When York Water Company (YORW) first distributed a dividend in 1816, James Madison was president and the United States counted just 18 states. The small Pennsylvania utility has paid through the Civil War, two World Wars, the Great Depression, and the 2008 financial crisis — not a single year missed. It stands as one of the most remarkable unbroken dividend records in American corporate history.
Two centuries of uninterrupted payouts from a quiet water utility — a reminder that durability often lives in the unglamorous.
YORW — The York Water Company
🇺🇸 US
Source: York Water Company investor relations
💡 Did You Know
A 1913 Dollar Now Takes About Thirty-Two Dollars to Match
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI calculator, what cost one dollar in 1913 requires roughly thirty-two dollars today — a quiet, relentless erosion that makes cash and fixed-rate instruments a slow-motion losing proposition. Dividends offer no ironclad guarantee against inflation, but companies that have raised their payouts for decades, growing faster than the CPI, have historically provided income that at least tries to keep pace. It is precisely why income investors watch dividend growth rate as closely as current yield.
Roughly 97% of the dollar's 1913 purchasing power is gone — the strongest argument yet for owning growing income streams.
🇺🇸 US
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation Calculator