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No it did not. I don't know why people repeat this so often but it is very frustrating. Nixon unilaterally ended the gold standard because the US was printing money to pay for Vietnam and the rest of the world called the US on its bullshit. The end of the gold standard is relatively recent in history and the verdict is still out on the impact.




The post-World War II Bretton Woods system was a limited form of the pre 1920s depression gold standard.

Both the silver standard and bimetallism have been more common than the gold standard.

Tying complex multi faceted economies to the physical abundance of specific raw materials fails to capture the full value of activities and assets.

The true gold standard was a blip from the 1870s to the early 1920s.


I think your observation assumes that inflating the value of gold relative to the rest of economy is a problem - if you do not care about that I'm not sure it matters.

In any case gold served as a strong check on monetary policy even if it had problems. Certainly it is possible to have a "sound" monetary policy without gold. I'm just not convinced in societies ability to affect sound governance of monetary policy without some "stronger" guard rails. Especially not in today's climate.


>I don't know why people repeat this so often but it is very frustrating.

The Ron Paul fandom spread this myth around incessantly during the late 2000s.




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