IVIV (8): Nixonizing U.S. Currency

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Nixon's monetary announcements:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRzr1QU6K1o

I remember watching this on TV with my staunchly-communist grandfather.  I asked him what it all meant and he replied in his thick Yiddish accent:  "I don't know.  But if Nixon's doing it, it's bad."

Can anyone tell me if he was right?

Those repeated references to "international money speculators" kind of triggers my Jewish-anxiety-meter.  I still don't have a clear sense of what this was all about.  Governments and nations still seemed to have some sort of autonomy from global corporations -- or was it just hidden better back then?  So the protectionist aspects, which would have a more anti-corporate bent nowadays, came across as more jingoistic back then.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>

>"Nixon's face on them"
>
>http://www.psywar.org/psywar/images/cwc_nixon01.jpg
>
>
>"staring wildly at something just out of sight"
>
>The Nixon Shock was a series of economic measures taken by U.S.
>President Richard Nixon in 1971 including unilaterally canceling the
>direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold that
>essentially ended the existing Bretton Woods system of international
>financial exchange.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock