The 50th Anniversary of the Nixon Shock

On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon suspended the convertibility of the US Dollar into gold, effectively ending the Bretton Woods Agreement that had been put in place after WW2 to stabilize the postwar economy. Host Ed Coyne is joined by Jim Grant, founder and editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer to look back at this significant event in monetary history. In this lively conversation Jim and Ed dig into how it came about, Nixon’s motivations and where we are today fifty years into ...