Ok, but why?

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com has been linked on HN many times before.

Is it related to that?

Searching the internet, one can read more, such as:

> In August 1971, alongside the "Nixon Shock" that severed the dollar's convertibility to gold, the Nixon administration imposed a 90-day economy-wide freeze on all wages and prices. This was the first time the U.S. enacted wage and price controls outside of wartime. Following the initial 90-day freeze, the Nixon administration implemented a complex, multi-tiered price control system on the petroleum industry that lasted for years.

> In August 1971, Nixon was "floating" the dollar, abandoning the gold standard and "freezing" prices and wages.

This video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EBEapf3OFw asks the below:

> Why did America deliberately destroy its own manufacturing industry?

And starts off,

> It did not happen all at once. Americans watched their own country lose it, brand by brand, factory by factory. Every time, the country was handed the same three reasons...(It looked inevitable. And every one of them was true enough to believe.) Plenty of those factories were still making money the day they were ordered shut. They closed anyway, on the say-so of men who had never worked a shift in their lives and grew richer each time another one went dark....