Why Richard Nixon torpedoed the global monetary system

This FT podcast episode recounts how President Richard Nixon’s 1971 decision to end dollar convertibility into gold — the “Nixon Shock” — effectively broke the Bretton Woods system and reshaped the global monetary order. By closing America’s doors to further gold-backed withdrawals amid dwindling Fort Knox reserves, the US severed the dollar’s direct link to gold, forcing currencies and markets to reprice risk and adapt to a floating-exchange-rate world. The episode explains the policy choice’s lasting market impact: the end of a fixed-dollar anchor, a shift in reserve and FX dynamics, and renewed importance of monetary policy and fiat currencies in global finance.