China Preparing for Bretton Woods II
Many of you have heard me speak about and blog about Bretton Woods monetary agreement that took place following WWII.
For any new readers, here is a VERY brief reminder;
Most of the world was destroyed in WWII...except for America. The leaders of the world all met at Bretton Woods resort out east to hammer out how the heck the world was going to rebuild its shattered currency and economic system.
Since America had 50% of the entire world's manufacturing capability and also had most of the gold....it was agreed upon that America would take the title (and responsibility) of having the earth's ONLY reserve currency.
We promised to print only $35 of currency for every ounce of gold we had on deposit at Fort Knox. If you can find a dollar bill from the 1940's, you would see that printed right on the face of the paper money it said, "Exchangeable for gold"....meaning that our U.S. dollars WERE THE GOLD STANDARD for every one else in the world.
Every other currency in the world was pegged to the U.S. dollar.
In the early 1970's, the Federal Government needed lots of money to drop bombs on Viet Nam and Cambodia. We didn't have enough gold in the vault to print enough money to buy the bombs that we needed...so President Nixon took us OFF the gold standard.
Going forward, our currency was now backed ONLY by the "Full faith and confidence" of the U.S. Government supplied by the U.S. Treasury.
"Holy crap Batman! You can't be serious!", said the Boy-Wonder.
Yes...it's true.
With that as a back drop...now you can see why this article is so interesting.
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