On Monday, 15 August, it's been exactly 40 years since the United States decided not to pay out gold for dollars. Time is gold ceased to be money (the official means of payment, and expressing and storing the value able), and the dollar has lost their "gold substrate," or gold standard, and became a "manufactured" or fiat currency.
The United States is more than a decade paid billions in gold reserves and foreign claimants in Fort Knox are quickly exhausted. That year, the financial institutions have accumulated dollar debts totaling 36 billion dollars, and the country's gold reserves which is guaranteed by the international convertibility of the dollar, had only $ 18 billion.
These days the media have an extra reason to remember the 15th August 1971.: 40 years after he ceased to be money, gold is in dollars more expensive than ever. Therefore, the question arises: is the gold become so valuable, or by measuring the gold dollar became the much less valuable?
Movements in the gold price today is the best evidence: the dollar and other "paper" currency may serve as a means of payment, to express prices and accounting, but the task of preserving the value of re-took the gold is strong.
Modern man is not easy to understand why this is so. The standard explanation is that gold has "embedded" or "internal" value, and the quantity is limited, which means that governments, unlike money without gold "background", can not produce at will, thereby reducing its value, "spoil "him.
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