[Aunche]

>The problem with the US and the west is not freedom of speech or the free market, it's our debt-based monetary system which is now based on soft money. The decline started in 1971 when USD became detached from the gold standard.

You have it backwards. We didn't end Bretton Woods because the government wanted to print money. The government was printing money, so they had to end Bretton Woods or else hyperinflation would occur. Right after WWII, Europe and Japan were desperate for capital to rebuild, so they were willing to exchange physical gold with made up paper, so it was free money while it lasted. If there were any real interest in maintaining a fiscal responsibility, they would have allowed investors to buy gold at the same price.

[cryptica]

The Bretton Woods system never fully ended in reality. Bretton Woods just ensured that all foreign fiat currencies would be pegged to the US dollar which at the time was pegged to gold. It was intended as a mechanism to allow all global currencies to be indirectly pegged to gold via the USD.

When Nixon abandoned the gold standard in 1971, the fiat currencies of all countries around the world were still pegged to the USD. This aspect of the Bretton Woods agreement remained in place... The USD started losing value but this did not cause the USD to hyperinflate relative to other currencies because all countries were still trying to maintain a stable exchange rate relative to the USD. It became currency manipulation on a global scale. Economies became increasingly detached from real value.

You should watch 'Hidden Secrets of Money' - One of the episodes does a really good job at explaining how this occurred.

[Aunche]

>The Bretton Woods system never fully ended in reality

Sure, we still have the IMF, but I'm specifically referring to part referring to the "gold standard". Again, it wasn't really a gold standard because the deal only extended to governments that happened to be desperate for capital. Regular people couldn't even own significant quantities of gold at the time.

>the fiat currencies of all countries around the world were still pegged to the USD.

This isn't true. Otherwise, exchange rates wouldn't be changing every second. Countries were allowed to choose how their currency was exchanged, and most of the major players allowed their currency to float freely.

>USD to hyperinflate relative to other currencies because all countries were still trying to maintain a stable exchange rate relative to the USD.

The USD never hyperinflated at all. I think the gist of what you're saying is true, like how Japan started to devalue its currency after the Yen started increasing in value. However, this precisely shows the problem with deflation. If your money grows just by sitting on it, there is little reason to invest in businesses, and it may be profitable to even downsize your business.

>You should watch 'Hidden Secrets of Money'

That was produced by the founder of goldsilver.com, so it's hardly an unbiased source. His business gains from sowing distrust in the financial system. I didn't watch this particular series, but I'm familiar with their arguments after I started investing in precious metals. I don't think their history is wrong, but IMO, they miss the entire point of money. Money isn't meant to be stored because it doesn't do any work. Money is something made up to facilitate trade as easily as possible. That's why it never makes any sense to artificially place constraints on it (e.g. pegging it to gold). This doesn't mean that we should abuse this freedom to print money on a whim either, but that's a completely separate problem.

[cryptica]

> This isn't true. Otherwise, exchange rates wouldn't be changing every second.

Prices fluctuate because people trade currencies on forex markets but those traders are not a significant force in the long run... Government reserve banks are the ones which keep exchange rates relatively stable by printing money. Traders just respond to and anticipate changes in the money supply caused by central banks.

If US Fed prints a lot of money (which puts downward pressure on the value of USD), all other central banks in the world will also start printing money to also devalue their currencies so that the exchange rate for their currency remains stable relative to USD (and therefore relative to all other currencies).

There is no major country in the world right now which has a free floating currency. Reserve banks are manipulating the global currency supply and enslaving the working population due to Cantillon effects.

The leader of any country which has tried to move out of this global monetary scheme has been overthrown and murdered by US military action (under some false pretext). For example, the real reason for the war in Libya is said to be that Gaddafi was trying to push Africa towards a gold based currency. Research the 'Libyan Gold Dinar'.