The collapse in the value of the dollar Thursday to its lowest level in history is a stunning development as America is about to enter the crucial last seven months of a presidential campaign that turns, in part, on the crisis of inflation.

In trading Thursday, the value of the dollar, measured in the classical monetary meta of gold, fell — albeit briefly — to less than a 2,220th of an ounce of gold. The flip side of that formulation is that the price of gold soared, albeit briefly, to more than $2,220 an ounce.

The plunge in the value of the dollar is being driven, analysts reckon, by what Reuters calls “expectations of interest rate cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve this year, even as traders await inflation readings this week for confirmation of the timing of these reductions.”

It is a marker of a lack of confidence in the dollar, the Federal Reserve, and the United States Congress. It is to the Congress that the Constitution delegates the monetary powers of the United States — the power to, among other things, coin money, regulate its value, and borrow money on the credit of the United States.