Tag Archives: Arthur Burns

Part II of IV by Claudio Grass The lasting impact of the Nixon Shock The economic and monetary consequences of Nixon’s decision to end the convertibility of the US dollar to gold are as numerous as they are severe. It marked the start of five decades of monetary and fiscal insanity and it unleashed unprecedented borrowing and deficit spending sprees. Debt-fueled “growth” became the name of the game and currency manipulation came to define both political strategies and central...

As my esteemed podcast co-host Emil Kalinowski has already mentioned (recurrently), we have, this year, two major anniversaries during these dog days of summer circled on our calendar. Today is, obviously, August 9 and for anyone the slightest familiar with the eurodollar story, that date is seared into their consciousness for as long as it will take to rebuild from the ashes created by the monetary fire lit that day. It has been, sadly, fourteen long years and only...

Once Upon a Time… Prior to 1933, the name “dollar” was used to refer to a unit of gold that had a weight of 23.22 grains. Since there are 480 grains in one ounce, this means that the name dollar also stood for 0.048 ounce of gold. This in turn, means that one ounce of gold referred to $20.67. Now, $20.67 is not the price of one ounce of gold in terms of dollars as popular thinking has it, for there is no such entity...