The End of Money as We Knew It. In a Sunday evening address, President Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value. The anchor of the global financial system has been cut loose.
Inflation Unleashed: Without the discipline of gold, the printing presses are free to run. Markets are reacting with extreme volatility as traders try to price currencies in a world without a fixed standard.
The New Era: We have entered the age of fiat currency. The value of money is now based solely on faith in the issuing government. The long-term consequences for inflation and debt are unknown, but the immediate impact is chaos.