I was on Digg the other day, and I came across a fantastic short YouTube video about the relationship between gold and the U.S. dollar.  (I have previously written about 10 reasons to invest in gold.)  The video provides a short 5-minute explanation of the history of the dollar, when and how it was pegged to gold, the point in history (1971) when President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard, and the effect of this decision on the value of the dollar and on today’s economy. 

You might not find a better explanation on TV or anywhere else.  This short video even uses concrete examples to illustrate its point.  For instance, it compares how many dollars it costs to buy a Corvette today (approximately $55,000) and how many dollars it would have cost had the dollar not been taken off the gold standard (about $1,200).  Crazy?  Yes.  That obviously doesn’t mean that we all could buy a Corvette today because the money we make (in salaries, wages, etc.) would be correspondingly lower, but it does demonstrate how much value the dollar has lost.   

If you want to understand further how catastrophic Nixon’s decision was and how it’s affecting the dollars in your pocket and in your bank account, watch the video below.

 

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed.

If you like this post, please bookmark it: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Propeller
  • Digg
  • Technorati
  • Reddit