With inflation on the rise and a gold run looming, President Richard Nixon's team enacted a plan that ended dollar convertibility to gold and implemented wage and price controls, which soon brought an end to the Bretton Woods System.

In 1971, Nixon’s political and institutional response to the inflation crisis (one of his own making) led to the decoupling of wages from productivity and an end to strong union leverage. This is where (IMO) the class war went into full swing.

I thought it might be nice to add context to current events.

Past is Prologue.

  • Powderhorn@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    7 days ago

    Nixon closing the gold window was a terrible move. Think about it: $35/ounce, and now it’s about $5,000/ounce.

    This doesn’t so much reflect gold being orders of magnitude more valuable so much as dollars being orders of magnitude less valuable.