[13113] in Cypherpunks
Re:The Value of Money
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (BETH TRESTRAIL)
Thu May 5 11:02:27 1994
Date: Thu, 05 May 94 10:56:44 EST
From: trestrab@GVSU.EDU (BETH TRESTRAIL)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Robert Hettinga writes:
> GRABOW_GEOFFREY@tandem.com asked:
>
>>Didn't Nixon take the U.S. off of the gold standard?
>>
>I believe Nixon made two changes. First, he decoupled the dollar from
>the price of gold, thus making the dollar more explicitly a
>part of the floating exchange rate mechanism (or more so,
>anyway). Second, he started making it legal for americans
>to own gold again, something FDR outlawed during the
>depression.
The US$ was devalued from $35 to $38 /oz gold and the Treasury stopped
redeeming dollars from anyone other than central banks in '69.
This created a two tier market. The US devalued again in '70 (0r '71)
to $45 /oz, and then threw in the towel and stopped backing the
currency with anything other than "the full faith and credit of the
US government" [:)].
US citizens were permitted to own gold bullion again as of Jan '75,
under Ford.
Jeff
trestrab@gvsu.edu
