Uhh to be really quick that's when the bottom fell out of the economic model the US was doing. A triple whacking of capital accumulation in Europe and Asia reducing profitability of us corporations (this buildup was required to buffer against the SU, so it's an internal contradiction), the oil shock from opec ( blowback from imperial adventurism to maintain profitability ), and a wage-inflation spiral from full employment hitting against that reduced profitability ( again another internal contradiction ), these three collapsed the previous economic model. Nixon swaps the US over to completely greenbacks and we begin the process of totalizing financialization and economic auto-cannabalism. There's a lot more to it but I'm on my lunch break.