The Nixon shock was a series of economic measures undertaken by United States President Richard Nixon in 1971, in response to increasing inflation, the most significant of which were wage and price freezes, surcharges on imports, and the unilateral cancellation of the direct international convertibility of the United States dollar to gold.
Although Nixon's actions did not formally abolish the existing Bretton Woods system of international financial exchange, the suspension of one of its key components effectively rendered the Bretton Woods system inoperative.
While Nixon publicly stated his intention to resume direct convertibility of the dollar after reforms to the Bretton Woods system had been implemented, all attempts at reform proved unsuccessful. By 1973, the Bretton Woods system was replaced de facto by the current regime based on freely floating fiat currencies.
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The problem not mentioned here, that really made matters bad was the oil supply shocks of 1973 and onward.
When you take the single product that is used in almost every action, and make it scarce, almost infinitely scarce by imposing an embargo, you create inflation panic. Prices skyrocket for every item, and people rush to buy whatever they want, before it gets worse. I am seeing a real lack of acknowledgement of what oil did to the 1970's in all outlets these days.
We have some supply bottlenecks now, but they should be temporary, because they are not intentional or created by a foreign government to punish us.
Brian O'Neil