On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon suspended the convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold, effectively ending the Bretton Woods Agreement that had been put in place in the mid-1940s, following WWII to stabilize the postwar economy. Host Ed Coyne is joined by Jim Grant, founder and editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, to look back at this significant event in monetary history. In this lively conversation, Jim and Ed dig into Nixon's motivations and where we are today fifty years into the fiat currency era.
James "Jim" Grant is an American writer and publisher and the founder of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, a twice-monthly journal of the financial markets. He is the author , most recently, of The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself. Grant's television appearances include "60 Minutes," "The Charlie Rose Show," Bloomberg TV, CNBC and other well-known financial news sources. His journalism has appeared in a variety of periodicals, including the "Financial Times", "The Wall Street Journal" and "Foreign Affairs."