We’ve written previously about the gold standard and it’s various guises over the past century and a bit.
For example this article touches on the classical gold standard and our thoughts on what the “ideal” would be. While in module’s 2 and 3 of our ecourse we give a quick run through of 100 years of monetary history.
So if you check out those you’ll get a pretty good understanding.
However if you’re someone who prefers to learn via watching and listening then this week we stumbled across an old video that does give a pretty good overall view of the monetary system over the past century or so.
The video was actually put together by a now shut down bullion dealer in the USA – Merit Financial. So even though it appears they were a bit “dodgy” to say the least, the information contained in their video is pretty solid. So don’t go hunting out Merit Financial as they no longer exist!
The video covers:
- The classical gold standard
- The impact of WWI and WWII
- The transformation to the “Bretton Woods” standard
- Nixons severing of the final link to gold of the US dollar
- The current “Dollar Standard” and its inherent problems
It’s only 20 minutes long and a decent enough history lesson if you need some gaps filled in.