Richard Nixon in End the Fed, by Rep. Ron Paul (R, TX)

On Budget & Economy: 1971: "We are all Keynesians now"; end the gold standard

In addition, wage and price controls were put in place, along with a 10% import tariff. Instead of the markets collapsing, the move was immediately praised by the Chamber of Commerce, and the stock market soared.

This was the third broken promise by our government regarding gold backing to our dollar. Lincoln did it in the Civil War, and FDR did it in 1933 when he confiscated gold from the American people and made it illegal for American citizens to own gold.

In 1971, the shift to a new monetary regime was an unprecedented experiment in global monetary planning, a wholesale plunge into the world of paper currency. With no backing for the dollar at all, Americans became completely reliant on the Federal Reserve to manage our money and to do so without any outside discipline