The chart seems to follow the value of the dollar (itself, not compared to other currencies) and US price index up until 2000, as far as I can tell. After that, though, I can’t really express what it would be expected to look like compared to what it does – but you can see the visible change in shape (where it goes from, “That looks like normal graph-ey-ness.” to “That looks like whatever this graph measures just went apeshit.”) pretty clearly.

Unfortunately, we can never look at these graphs and talk about the actual problem – instead we just argue about who is to blame for it, or if we’re ignorant about the nuances, whether it was “Bush’s fault” or “Obama’s fault.”