Yes, fiat currency used to be backed by gold and silver until 1974 (in Canada). The year is similar for the US; '68 maybe. Yes things have gotten out of control not because the government is printing too much money, it's because the government is borrowing the money from banks and has to pay it back with interest.

If you have the only $10 and you lend me $1 if I agree to pay you back $2, where does the second dollar come from? I would have to borrow it from you and then I'd owe $4. I would never be able to pay you back. That is how the bank controls the government now. It has nothing to do with how much money they print. I don't know a lot about US history, but in Canada before 1974, the government spent large sums of money on 2 world wars, major highways, major airports, railway systems, sea ports, the St-Lawrence seaway to the great lakes, etc. All of those things did not even make a dent in the countries debt until they got rid of the gold backed dollar.

So, it's not because the government is printing money. they were always doing that. It's because the government gave the power to print money to the banks and they are ruining the economy because now everyone is enslaved by debt.

This is not the case with steemit. Steemit has a fixed amount of steem being created every day. The value that backs it is the people using the site and how much value they get out of it. Yes, if people stopped using the site and steemit continued to create steem, then the value would drop. But, if people keep joining and they keep finding value in this place, then the value will go up. I'm sure there are factors that cause deflation of steem as well. Like holding steem power. All that steem power everyone has is locked up for a short term so only the liquid steem can be sold. If everyone started to power down all at once, I'm sure the price would drop even before they sold it. But not everyone is powering down so the price is holding steady.