A century ago, when depositors lost confidence in a bank, they’d rush to withdraw their cash. In 1971, US president Richard Nixon faced a similar dilemma. But his problem wasn’t ordinary citizens fearing for their savings. Instead, it was America’s closest allies who were nervously eyeing the dwindling supply of gold in Fort Knox at a time when the dollar’s value was tied to gold and allies’ currencies were in turn tied to the dollar.
In the first of two episodes on what became known as the ‘Nixon Shock’, hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth get the story from economist and ex-financier Jeffrey Garten — a man with a CV so long that he once even worked for the Nixon administration himself.
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