Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by PCalvanelli 961 days ago
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
2 comments

The bricks were laid for untethering from gold long before 1971. The cynic in me thinks that was the plan of the bankers that came up with Bretton Woods in the first place. "Give us all your gold and we will give you paper, we plomise we will always honor the exchange of paper back to gold."
One of the original plans at that meeting was a new world reserve currency, but they gave up control to the American dollar because the USA had control of 2/3 of the world's gold and refused to support the idea of the "bancor"
Reminds me of the IMF's introduction of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) shortly after Bretton Woods to smooth over any liquidity crisis that might occur.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_drawing_rights?useskin...

The one thing this is correct about is that continuing Bretton Woods past 1971 would lower the gap between economic productivity and wages... because both of them would have collapsed after the US depletes all its gold reserves.