Last week we looked at the strange de-banking trend and the history of our money.
In our brief history lesson, we noted how the dollar was not only backed by precious metals for most of its history – it was in fact defined as a specific amount of silver and later gold.
But everything changed in 1971. That’s when President Nixon cut the dollar’s last link to gold.
This thrust the world on a purely fiat monetary system controlled entirely by governments and central banks. Fiat is the Latin word for “let it be done”.
This is what gave rise to the Age of Paper Wealth I highlighted in my book Beyond the Nest Egg. Because the fiat system removed all restrictions on printing money.
It took most governments about a decade to realize this. But once they did, they didn’t look back…
Continue reading “What happened to our money?”