The Bretton Woods Monetary System (1944 - 1971) Explained in One Minute

After World War 2, it was clear the world needed a new financial system and as such, 44 countries sent delegates to Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to work on just that.

The Bretton Woods system lasted from 1944 to 1971, when Nixon ended it and thereby put the final nail in the coffin of not just the Bretton Woods monetary system but also to gold's monetary role.

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[CaseNumber]

30 years after founding this system, near anyone could work and buy a home by the age of 25. 30 years after its collapsed, most young people can barely pay rent.

[ElizabethHernandez-kcjn]

Brilliantly Explained, Concise, Useful and lends itself to be easily digested by anyone, even Starters! Thank you for this Minute of Brilliance!

[sophrapsune]

And the US has been printing and spending fiat money like a drunken sailor ever since.

[HarisKhan-szcz]

Richard Nixon
We gave our word in Bretton Woods but we dont have to keep our word.
Bloody oppressers

[noblephoenix]

Lol, flexible money. In other words "we need money but we don't want to go through all the hassle of working, creating actual wealth or be so obviously oppressive by directly taking it from the people through heavy taxation. It's better to just print the money and take from the people through inflation and printing money from thin air."

[LordMullins]

Of all the videos iv seen about what is the Bretton Woods agreement this is the only one to mention the word gold. This is also the only one to get my thumbs up

[tudorst]

Great video ! Short and accurate explanation of why we don't a have better control over money printing and why the money ended up being just a piece of paper instead of being backed in gold, how it used to be and how a healthier financial system would require.

[rod]

With a gold standard central banks and governments would have a much harder time manipulating the money supply, and reckless government spending would be much more difficult if not impossible. So, yes, in this sense the gold standard is too rigid because it doesn't allow governments and central banks to centrally plan the economy.

[ramflow]

Kinda crazy how the world still depended on Gold as currency backing not even 50 years ago.

[anarky]

the gold standard was only too "rigid" because they wanted to spend more $$ than they had...gold standard worked JUST FINE for thousands of years and will continue working

[MrBeesness]

There are some modern parallels to what happened financially with the Delian league

[zenastronomy]

bretton Woods system never collapsed. the gold standard did. big difference ❤

[martinchekuri]

This is brilliant. Thanks! I subscribed. Please keep making great content.

[bartofilms]

Of course you left out much of the story. British currency traders bought up massive amounts of that US Govt Debt and then demanded the dollars be converted to gold. There wasn't enough gold in Ft. Knox so Nixon stepped in to prevent direct defaults. You also neglect to mention that as part of the Bretton Woods agreement, Nixon's Sec. of State got OPEC to agree to sell crude oil ONLY in US Dollars. This bolstered the currency on global exchanges. That policy continues, but EV's are beginning to sell and demand for petroleum is diminishing. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what's next for the US$ as fewer and fewer gasoline cars are built/purchased around the world.

[seancaseo]

IMF have declared in the last few days they want another Bretton woods meeting

[oltlvfm]

There exists two types of monetary system: inflationary, which is what we use today, called fiat. These systems tend to be opaque with closed ledgers. Then there is deflationary monetary system, where its monetary units are infinitely divisible like bitcoin. This system is best for everyone. Inflationary systems best for those responsible for its inflation but not accountable.

[soran]

People call cryptocurrency 'meme' currency like it's a bad thing, but they forget that the USD is the world's 1st meme currency...

[bobbywasabi]

What music did you use in the background and if you wouldn’t mind, could you send the link?

[alwincyrus]

@one minute economics Why do still the world measure everything in reference to dollars when Bretton woods system didn't work?