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Gold Standard Foreign Exchange Market

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Gold Standard Foreign Exchange Market The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of gold. With the gold standard, the United States economy would print currency that equaled a specific value of gold. Meaning, you could cash in your money for a specified amount of gold because a unit of currency equals a specific amount of gold. As stated in chapter 5 of International business, 10th edition, “the gold exchange standard, established at Bretton Woods after World War II, worked until the 1970’s when it collapsed due to inflation and the surplus of U.S. dollars held outside the United States.” They used gold because its rarity, durability, and the general ease of identification …show more content…

Smaller retailers would most likely be ruined in these types of transactions because of the lack of knowledge and playing power when it comes to trading in a high risk format and are usually discourage to partake in these high risk trading. The limitations to Governments were that they could not spend what they wanted because the amount of currency in circulation had to correspond to the amount of gold in reserve. President Nixon eliminated the gold standard in 1971. It was eliminated because the governments could not manipulate the money supply if it was tied to gold. Once it was eliminated, governments could create as much "Fiat" money as they wanted in order to conduct wars or any other big expenses. Fiat money is money that the government has declared to be legal tender even though it has no actual value and is not backed by reserves. As a result, the currency in circulation today does not have to be backed up by anything. This is why we see trillion dollar deficits today. Politicians can spend what they want regardless of the real economic downfalls that eventually have to be dealt with. Nowadays, on a side note, foreign governments such as the Chinese and others finance our US debt. This means most of debt the US government owns is owed to foreign investors. The answer to whether having gold standard is good or not is based on whom you ask. Economists will have one

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