How America Made The Dollar A Global Benchmark | Epic Economics

Things are strange right now. The US dollar is becoming less valuable because of inflation, but it's getting stronger compared to other currencies and things like gold and property. People are turning to the dollar because they think it's safer. I'm worried about my retirement savings of about $420,000 losing value because of high inflation. Where else can we keep our money?

Great video, but the map is really confusing, because it uses modern state borders to represent the countries of 1944. British India and South Africa were present at the Bretton Woods Conference as two of the 44 nations, but I suppose they have been omitted on this map, because they were British colonies at the time. Russia is here used as a placeholder for the Soviet Union, but the break-away nations are not represented as members, although they were part of the Soviet Union at the time. China is most confusing: The People's Republic of China, here depicted without Taiwan, is used as a place-holder for The Republic of China, although Taiwan is now the only remaining part of the Republic of China.

Excellent broad strokes presentation. Well done.

Just as important, Bretton Woods was also a security agreement where the US would open their markets to the world and enforce free trade between nations as the US was the only nation with a standing deep water navy. This is what allowed globalization.

Great video, this channel is filling an important niche.

I've been to Bretton Woods, quite a nice place for winter sports.

Great little video. So much of modern economic history comes down to that one big war.

The removal from gold standard was the move toward control and destabilization.

Next do a video on the BIS.

It’s interesting how many similarities there are between the Gold standard and how oil transactions take place in usd.

This makes post Viet Nam era economic and military behavior make so much more sense.

Why was the worlds wealth trusted to one country …..that is insane

I'm not sure if the statement made at @1:16 is really accurate. Actual gold deposits were kept at a fractional reserve. There was never a 1:1 link between the number of dollars floating around the world and the amount of gold in US vaults. (That's a common misconception about the Gold Standard) The US could freely decide what ratio of dollars it could print vs the amount of gold in reserve. And individuals and businesses weren't entitled to ask the US treasury to cash in their dollars for gold. That privilege was only extended to other nations (like France). The biggest reason for Nixon to ditch the Gold Standard was that Charles De Gaulle, the ruler of France at the time, set out to show the world that the US Gold Standard was unreliable, and began manipulating currencies in order to buy dollars at a reduced rate, then demand the US hand over the gold backing those dollars. A few more years of that would have led to no gold being left on reserve.

watching this video from the hotel where the conference was held😎

I knew most of this but didn't realise why the peg failed in the late sixties.

Looks like the agreement was really important in its time, but it was totally unsustainable over the longer term. It helped rebuild Europe and thus the world's post-war economy, and it helped establish the USA as a center point in that economy, but the agreement as written couldn't last. It didn't take inflation into account, and didn't allow the US economy to be as versatile as it needed to be, etc. Occasionally I'll hear someone lamenting that leaving the gold standard is where the country went wrong, and everything was happy until then and misery since. I doubt that's accurate, but I've learned to not try to have that conversation; the charismatic guru that taught them this belief lives rent-free in their head and commands... religious reverence. IDK, seems sus.

Excellent video but use correct map

When they made the agreement, how did they take into account inflation?

This video did not explain why this matters to individuals personally, as promised on the title.

Isn’t Jamaican system the most up-to-date right now?