We should never have left the clam shell standard, that was the whole problem.
Aa long as the progressive leftist cancer is destroying America then no way the dollar currency remains credible. While I doubt China or anybody else wants to knock off the dollar eventually there will have to be somw sort of replacement for the “reserve” currency.
With the value of the dollar propped up because of its use for trading commodities, removing gold as the payment for international transactions allowed the US to run unlimited trade deficits without the dollar depreciating as much as it should have.
At the same time, enormously expensive, new environment regulations burdened American heavy industry and we opened the doors to predatory mercantilist trading partners like Japan and Taiwan.
In some cases, like consumer electronics, the US government deliberately made deals to allow discriminatory trade practices to buy diplomatic support. Johnson did this with Japan to buy support for the Vietnam war. The result was that Japan cut off imports of US consumer electronics and within about ten years annihilated the entire US sector.
Removing the last peg to gold also unconstitutionally transferred control of the currency from Congress to the Federal Reserve because the only way to set the value of a currency became the control of interest rates.
An unmitigated disaster by every possible measure.
Up to WW II any creditable currency was pegged to a gold/silver standard, which would have included the money of Washington’s time as President. While WWII destroyed most economies of the world, the United States prospered. The only way to restart international economic activity was for the U.S. to take the lead, which it did with the Bretton Woods Agreement, and thereby became the international reserve currency.
Therefore, once again there was a U.S. gold standard, but Americans could not take their Federal Reserve Notes to a Fed bank and trade them for gold. When the Treasury in 1964 began producing dimes through dollars without silver, silver coins disappeared from circulation. Until about 1968 people could still trade their Federal Reserve notes for Silver Certificates and trade those for packets of silver from a Federal Reserve Bank.
At this time, the working careers of a single generation comprise the totality of comprehension for how the international community was to function economically without currencies emerging from things people can touch and see. Government banks worldwide are using the same strategy of creating fiat money to push their economies along, and are clueless about any side effects.
I recall this time. I was 11, and had found an FM radio station (KZAP) in Sacramento that aired a program called The Rawhide Reality Review. A mix of news and call-ins. Host spoke of the change, and urged everyone to go out and buy up as much gold as possible, immediately. His message was something like “We’re going to go off of the Gold Standard, but humanity isn’t. Look forward to rapid inflation as the dollar de-values. Gold prices is U.S. dollars will very quicklybe roughly ten times what they are now.”
The biggest thef in history is the federal government stealing the purchasing power of the dollar, and it all started with Nixon.
Sorry for the long link. 50 year gold price chart adjusted to 1980 CPI.
Last high, 1980. Low since then...right now.
