The Reasons That Led Richard Nixon To End the Bretton Woods System on August 15, 1971.

The world then entered (for the worse) the era of financial crises and speculation.

It is August 15, 1971. Richard Nixon provoked worldwide shock by announcing the temporary end of the convertibility of the American dollar into gold. The temporary has finally become permanent. Thus, Nixon ended the Bretton Woods system that the Americans loved.

This world monetary system had been imposed in 1944 at Bretton Woods by another U.S. president, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

To understand the fatal spiral that put an end to the only international monetary order ever decided by men, we must go back at least to the First World War.