The 1944 Bretton Woods System That Failed Too Fast

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The 1944 Bretton Woods System That Failed Too Fast

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Episode 84 of The Economic History Podcast with Fexingo: Past Recessions, Booms, and Lessons from History dives into the 1944 Bretton Woods conference and the dollar-gold system it created. Lucas and Luna explore why an arrangement designed to stabilise global currencies for a generation collapsed in just 27 years. They focus on the 'Triffin dilemma' — the fatal flaw Belgian economist Robert Triffin identified in 1960 — and trace how America's balance of payments deficits, the Vietnam War, and French gold hoarding forced President Nixon to close the gold window in August 1971. Specific figures: the $35 per ounce gold peg, the $7 billion U.S. gold stock in 1948 versus liabilities of $50 billion by 1960, and the $2.5 billion gold drain in 1965 alone. Listeners will understand why the Bretton Woods design was inherently unstable and how its collapse reshaped modern currency markets. #BrettonWoods #EconomicHistory #DollarGoldSystem #TriffinDilemma #RobertTriffin #NixonShock #GoldWindow #IMF #WorldBank #FixedExchangeRates #BalanceOfPayments #VietnamWar #FrenchGold #JohnMaynardKeynes #WhitePlan #Economics #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo

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