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Episode 7 — The Final Break
On August 15th, 1971, something fundamental changed — and most people never noticed.
In a short Sunday night television address, President Richard Nixon quietly severed the final link between the U.S. dollar and gold. There was no vote. No public debate. No warning. Just a promise that “your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today.”
It wasn’t.
That moment didn’t just change American policy. It rewrote the global monetary system. Money stopped being a claim on something real and became a promise enforced by the state. Gold — the anchor that had restrained governments for centuries — was replaced by fiat currency, backed by nothing more than confidence and coercion.
In this episode, we trace how that single decision reshaped everything that followed.
We start with the world after World War Two, the trauma of the Treaty of Versailles, and why global leaders feared another economic collapse more than anything else. We explain how Bretton Woods was designed to stabilise trade, why the dollar became “as good as gold,” and how that system quietly handed the United States an extraordinary privilege.
Then we walk through the breaking point. Vietnam. Welfare expansion. Deficits. Dollar printing. Foreign governments demanding gold. And finally, the moment the warehouse doors were shut and the string was cut.
From there, we explore the consequences.
Why inflation became permanent instead of temporary.Why prices never come back down.Why wages chase costs but never catch up.Why housing, assets, and debt exploded.Why the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency exported instability to the rest of the globe.
And why foreign countries — forced to borrow in a currency they can’t control — repeatedly cycle through booms, busts, banking crises, and inflation.
This episode isn’t about conspiracy. It’s about incentives. Systems. And unintended consequences that became permanent features.
If you’ve ever wondered why your money feels weaker every year, why saving feels pointless, or why governments always seem able to spend without restraint — this is the break that explains it.
Because once money was untethered from reality, there was only one direction it could go.
Up.
Get full access to Taxed & Taken: Money, Power & Freedom from the State at patelankeet.substack.com/subscribe
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By Taxed & TakenOn August 15th, 1971, something fundamental changed — and most people never noticed.
In a short Sunday night television address, President Richard Nixon quietly severed the final link between the U.S. dollar and gold. There was no vote. No public debate. No warning. Just a promise that “your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today.”
It wasn’t.
That moment didn’t just change American policy. It rewrote the global monetary system. Money stopped being a claim on something real and became a promise enforced by the state. Gold — the anchor that had restrained governments for centuries — was replaced by fiat currency, backed by nothing more than confidence and coercion.
In this episode, we trace how that single decision reshaped everything that followed.
We start with the world after World War Two, the trauma of the Treaty of Versailles, and why global leaders feared another economic collapse more than anything else. We explain how Bretton Woods was designed to stabilise trade, why the dollar became “as good as gold,” and how that system quietly handed the United States an extraordinary privilege.
Then we walk through the breaking point. Vietnam. Welfare expansion. Deficits. Dollar printing. Foreign governments demanding gold. And finally, the moment the warehouse doors were shut and the string was cut.
From there, we explore the consequences.
Why inflation became permanent instead of temporary.Why prices never come back down.Why wages chase costs but never catch up.Why housing, assets, and debt exploded.Why the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency exported instability to the rest of the globe.
And why foreign countries — forced to borrow in a currency they can’t control — repeatedly cycle through booms, busts, banking crises, and inflation.
This episode isn’t about conspiracy. It’s about incentives. Systems. And unintended consequences that became permanent features.
If you’ve ever wondered why your money feels weaker every year, why saving feels pointless, or why governments always seem able to spend without restraint — this is the break that explains it.
Because once money was untethered from reality, there was only one direction it could go.
Up.
Get full access to Taxed & Taken: Money, Power & Freedom from the State at patelankeet.substack.com/subscribe