Websites that want to push a narrative should spell out their narrative (the WTF one). This website cannot have been up for this long without having a narrative.
My understanding is that it's meant to push the gold standard/anti-fiat currency, judging by the quote at the end of the website + link to Bitcoin whitepaper.
The site is titled as a question specifically asking about a particular year. If you have rudimentary financial history knowledge, then you would be aware that 1971 was the year Nixon took the US off of the gold standard.
At the same time, if you have rudimentary economic history knowledge, then you would be aware that 1973 was the Arab Oil Embargo, and that the 1970s were an era of economic stagnation and inflation whose principal cause was that economic event.
If you reevaluate many of these graphs knowing that the 1970s were a period of high inflation, and that there was a significant economic event in 1973, you end up finding that 1971 wasn't actually all that special: indeed, most of the time, when 1971 looks to be a key inflation point, it's because the graph isn't indexed for inflation and so the beginning of high inflation being around 1971 stands out. Where the graphs are indexed for inflation, there's no obvious inflection point around 1971, instead the inflection point shifts a lot more towards 1980.
Putting that together, the only reason you have to make an argument for a monocausal economic event that happens in 1971 is if you want to emphasize the importance of the gold standard, and the only reason you'd have to believe it is if you don't have the economic literacy to understand why the evidence just isn't there at all. Put that together, and the reasonable assumption is that the people who made these charts are goldbugs who want to convince you that we need to return to the gold standard.
Stagflation in the 1970s was primarily caused by unforced domestic economic policy errors, not by the Arab Oil Embargo. There was never an actual shortage of crude oil. Those errors were largely related to failed attempts at economic central planning; the gold standard or lack thereof had little to do with it.
They are very sure. There are lots of different things that happened in the late 60s and early 70s through to the early 80s that substantially affected the economy. Focussing on 1971 makes it clear that they think only one of those is significant.
It's much more effective to let a reader make their own conclusion from cherry-picked data than it is to state the conclusion outright.
It's a classic way of pushing narrative without actually spelling it out - it's supposed to set up biases so you can later find out that Bretton Woods system reached it's inevitable collapse in 1971 and the bias will make you accept the narrative of "sound money" proponents so that you'll believe in bitcoin and similar "digital gold" (that term dates me, doesn't it?) systems as solutions for toot cause of all the woes around you.
