Robert Hettinga writes:
GRABOW_GEOFFREY@tandem.com asked:
Didn't Nixon take the U.S. off of the gold standard?
I believe Nixon made two changes. First, he decoupled the dollar from the price of gold, thus making the dollar more explicitly a part of the floating exchange rate mechanism (or more so, anyway). Second, he started making it legal for americans to own gold again, something FDR outlawed during the depression.
The US$ was devalued from $35 to $38 /oz gold and the Treasury stopped redeeming dollars from anyone other than central banks in '69. This created a two tier market. The US devalued again in '70 (0r '71) to $45 /oz, and then threw in the towel and stopped backing the currency with anything other than "the full faith and credit of the US government" [:)]. US citizens were permitted to own gold bullion again as of Jan '75, under Ford. Jeff trestrab@gvsu.edu