August 15, 1971.
You probably don’t remember this date. Most Americans don’t. But on that steamy Sunday evening, President Richard Nixon made a decision that would ultimately destroy more wealth than any military defeat in American history.
With a single television address, Nixon severed the dollar’s final link to gold—suspending the convertibility of dollars to gold at $35 per ounce—and promised the American people this “temporary” measure would “stabilize the dollar.” He looked straight into the camera and assured viewers that “if you are among the overwhelming majority of Americans who buy American-made products in America, your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today.”
It was a lie. Perhaps the most consequential lie ever told to the American people by a sitting president.
Today, 54 years later, that same dollar has lost 98.5% of its value against gold. The price of gold now stands at $4,089 per ounce as of November 10, 2025—a staggering 11,568% increase from Nixon’s arbitrary $35 peg. But this isn’t just about numbers on a chart. This is about the systematic destruction of American prosperity, the theft of your purchasing power, and the approaching collapse of the greatest economic empire in human history.
The evidence is overwhelming. The warning signs are everywhere. And time is running out.
The Nixon Shock: How One Weekend Changed Everything
Let me take you back to Camp David, August 1971.
Nixon gathered his top economic advisors—Treasury Secretary John Connally, Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns, and an unknown Treasury technocrat named Paul Volcker—for a secret weekend meeting. The crisis was simple: Foreign governments, led by French President Charles de Gaulle, had figured out that America was printing far more dollars than it had gold to back them. By 1971, there were four times as many dollars in circulation as America had gold reserves to support them.
France had already started demanding gold for dollars. Other nations were preparing to follow. The United States faced a classic bank run, except the “bank” was the U.S. Treasury and the “depositors” were foreign central banks holding $50 billion in dollar claims against just $10 billion in U.S. gold reserves.
Nixon had three choices: raise interest rates dramatically to defend the dollar (political suicide in an election year), allow foreign governments to drain Fort Knox (unthinkable), or break the promise America made to the world in 1944.
He chose door number three.
The Bretton Woods system—which had established the dollar as the world’s reserve currency precisely because it was “as good as gold”—died that weekend. And with it died any meaningful restraint on government spending, any real check on Federal Reserve money printing, and any protection for ordinary Americans against the silent confiscation of their wealth through inflation.
The Fifty-Four Year Theft
Here’s what Nixon’s “temporary” suspension of gold convertibility has actually cost you.
A dollar in 1971 had the purchasing power of $16.40 in 2025 money. Put another way, $100 in 1975 is worth only $16.40 today—an 84% decline in purchasing power. Since 1925, the dollar has lost 95% of its purchasing power overall.
But these aggregate numbers obscure the accelerating destruction happening right now.
In just the five years from 2020 to 2025, $100 in purchasing power has collapsed to $80—a 20% reduction in half a decade. The years 2021-2022 alone saw an 8.5% decline in dollar purchasing power, the highest annual drop in 40 years. As of September 2025, inflation stands at 3.0%—still 50% above the Federal Reserve’s stated 2% target and triple the expected rate.
Meanwhile, specific categories tell an even more alarming story: beef and veal prices jumped 14.7% year-over-year through September 2025. Motor vehicle maintenance and repair costs surged 7.7%. And these are the government’s own numbers—the very same government that has every incentive to understate real inflation.
The Debt Death Spiral
But inflation is merely the symptom. The disease is America’s debt addiction—a fiscal cancer that has metastasized beyond control.
On October 23, 2025, the national debt crossed $38 trillion. Read that again: thirty-eight trillion dollars. This represents an increase of $1 trillion in just over two months, from $37 trillion in mid-August. The debt is growing at $2.17 trillion annually.
To put this in perspective, the debt now equals roughly $111,000 for every person in America. It represents the combined value of the economies of China, India, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
The fiscal year 2025 deficit hit $1.8 trillion—one of the largest in American history outside of the World War II and pandemic eras. Projections show deficits of $1.940 trillion in FY2026 and $2.052 trillion in FY2027.
But here’s where it gets truly catastrophic: interest payments on the national debt now exceed $1 trillion annually. That’s more than we spend on national defense. More than Medicare. Interest costs alone now consume over 20% of federal tax revenue—and growing.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that debt held by the public will reach 172% of GDP by 2054. But I don’t believe we make it that far. History shows that sovereign debt crises arrive suddenly, not gradually.
The Federal Reserve’s Impossible Position
The Fed finds itself trapped in a vise of its own making.
The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet ballooned from under $1 trillion before 2008 to over $6.6 trillion by 2025 through multiple rounds of “quantitative easing”—which is simply Orwellian doublespeak for creating money from thin air. Bank reserves held at the Fed now stand at $3.4 trillion, up from effectively zero before the 2008 crisis.
And here’s the truly insidious part: The Fed now pays interest on these reserves. When it raised rates to fight inflation in 2022-2024, the central bank started operating at a loss because it pays out more in interest than it earns on its holdings. For the first time in its history, the Federal Reserve stopped sending money to the Treasury and started costing taxpayers billions.
In 2025, the Fed cut rates twice—in September and October—bringing rates down to 3.75-4.00%. But it’s caught in an impossible dilemma. Keep rates high, and the government’s debt service costs explode, crowding out essential spending and risking a fiscal crisis. Cut rates too far, and inflation roars back, destroying the dollar’s purchasing power even faster.
This is the endgame of a fiat currency system divorced from gold: Policymakers face only bad choices and worse choices.
The Dollar’s Global Decline
The dollar’s dominance as the world’s reserve currency—what French officials called America’s “exorbitant privilege”—is under assault.
In the first half of 2025, the dollar fell almost 10% against the euro, more than 8% against the Mexican peso, and 8% against the Japanese yen. The U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar against a basket of major currencies, dropped 10.7% in just the first six months of 2025—the steepest decline since 1973.
According to International Monetary Fund data, the dollar’s share of global foreign exchange reserves has declined from 71% in 2001 to 58-59% as of 2024. Central banks worldwide are diversifying away from dollars and into gold, with 634 tonnes purchased in the first nine months of 2025 alone. The World Gold Council expects annual central bank purchases to reach 750-900 tonnes.
Businesses are noticing. “Companies that export to the U.S. want a different currency these days,” according to foreign exchange analysts. If you’re selling goods internationally and being paid in dollars, “you’re thinking, ‘If this continues, I don’t want to be paid in dollars, because that’ll mean that I have less purchasing power domestically.'”
Cornell University economist Eswar Prasad warns that if there is a major shift away from dollar dominance, “it will likely be abrupt and painful. That would mean turmoil in U.S. government bond markets, which in turn would mean turmoil in U.S. financial markets more broadly, and this could spill over into global financial turmoil.”
Gold: The Truth Detector
While Washington spins fairy tales about “transitory” inflation and “manageable” deficits, gold tells the truth.
Gold prices have surged over 25% since the start of 2025, rising from roughly $2,619 in November 2024 to $4,089 as of November 10, 2025—a gain of more than $1,470 per ounce in 12 months. On October 20, 2025, gold hit an all-time high of $4,377.58 per ounce.
Gold mining stocks have delivered even more spectacular returns. The NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index has jumped over 122% through September 2025, compared to 47% for bullion itself and just 14% for the S&P 500. Newmont Corporation rose 130% in 2025, while the VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF gained 117% year-to-date.
This isn’t speculation. It’s global capital fleeing from a dying currency system into the only form of money that has survived every empire, every crisis, every currency collapse for 5,000 years.
Why the Gold Standard Is the Only Solution
The gold standard isn’t some nostalgic fantasy. It’s the only mechanism in human history that has successfully restrained government spending, protected the purchasing power of ordinary citizens, and prevented the boom-bust cycles that destroy families and businesses.
Here’s why:
First, gold imposes fiscal discipline. Under a gold standard, governments can’t simply print money to finance wars, welfare states, or bailouts for politically connected industries. They must either tax citizens directly (which creates political accountability) or borrow money from willing lenders (which creates market discipline). The fake money spigot gets shut off.
Second, gold eliminates inflation as a form of taxation. Inflation is the most regressive tax in existence—it hits the poor and middle class hardest while allowing those closest to the money printer (Wall Street banks, government contractors, asset owners) to benefit first. With a gold standard, prices would be stable or gently falling as productivity increases—just as they were for most of American history before 1913.
Third, gold restores honest money to international trade. Under Bretton Woods, countries couldn’t engage in competitive currency devaluations or manipulate exchange rates for political advantage. Trade balanced naturally. Today’s system of floating fiat currencies creates massive distortions, trade wars, and ultimately military conflicts as nations fight over economic advantages.
Fourth, gold forces governments to live within their means. The $38 trillion national debt couldn’t exist under a gold standard. Neither could the $100+ trillion in unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare, and federal pensions. The harsh mathematics of gold would force Washington to make the choices it’s been avoiding for 50 years.
The Counterarguments Don’t Hold Water
Critics will tell you the gold standard is “impractical” or “outdated.” Let me address their objections directly.
“There’s not enough gold to support the economy.” Nonsense. The amount of gold is irrelevant. What matters is the price at which gold is fixed to the currency. At $35/ounce (the old Bretton Woods price), there wasn’t enough gold. But at current market prices above $4,000/ounce, there’s more than enough. The key is setting an honest price that reflects gold’s scarcity relative to the number of dollars in circulation.
“The gold standard caused the Great Depression.” This is a myth perpetuated by Keynesian economists. The Depression was caused by Federal Reserve mistakes in monetary policy and Herbert Hoover’s massive tax increases and tariff barriers—not by gold itself. In fact, countries that abandoned gold early in the Depression (like Britain) and those that maintained it longer (like France) all experienced similar economic downturns.
“We can’t control the economy under a gold standard.” That’s precisely the point! The endless boom-bust cycles, asset bubbles, and financial crises of the past 50 years are direct results of giving central bankers the power to “control the economy.” The gold standard takes the punch bowl away from monetary central planners who have proven time and again they lack the wisdom to wield such power.
“Other countries won’t agree to it.” Then America should implement it unilaterally. When the United States had a gold-backed dollar during the 19th and early 20th centuries, it became the most prosperous nation in human history. Sound money attracts capital, talent, and innovation. Within a decade of America returning to gold, most other countries would follow.
Five Investments to Protect Yourself NOW
I don’t expect Washington to embrace the gold standard anytime soon. The political class is too addicted to deficit spending, and Wall Street has too much invested in the current system. So you need to protect yourself.
Here are five investments that will shield you from dollar destruction:
1. Physical Gold Bullion
Buy gold coins or bars and store them securely—not in a bank safety deposit box (which can be seized), but in a private vault or multiple secure locations you control. American Gold Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs, or simple gold bars from reputable mints are your best options. Gold has risen over 25% in 2025 and more than 55% year-over-year. As the dollar continues its descent, gold will preserve your purchasing power.
2. Senior Gold Mining Stocks
Companies like Newmont Corporation and Agnico Eagle Mines provide leveraged exposure to rising gold prices. When gold rises 1%, mining stocks historically rise 2-3% because their production costs are relatively fixed while revenues soar. Newmont jumped 130% in 2025 with record free cash flow of $1.6 billion in Q3. These companies are generating massive cash at current gold prices and will compound your returns if gold heads to $5,000/ounce—which Goldman Sachs projects could happen by 2026.
3. Junior Gold Mining Stocks
For more aggressive investors, junior miners offer explosive upside. The VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF gained 117% year-to-date through October 2025. These smaller producers typically deliver three to five times gold’s gains during bull markets, though they’re more volatile. Serabi Gold, for example, achieved 17% year-over-year production growth in Q2 2025 while more than doubling earnings per share.
4. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS)
TIPS are U.S. government bonds whose principal adjusts with inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index. While TIPS currently yield approximately 1.8-2.0% real returns, they provide protection against further inflation spikes. The five-year TIPS breakeven rate stands at 2.5%, meaning inflation would need to average 2.5% over five years for TIPS to outperform regular Treasuries. Given that official inflation is currently 3.0% and likely understated, TIPS offer reasonable protection for conservative portfolios.
5. Real Estate with Fixed-Rate Mortgages
Property values typically rise with inflation, and rental income adjusts upward over time. But the real magic is in fixed-rate financing: A homeowner who purchased property with a 30-year fixed mortgage at 3.5% in 2019 has seen their real debt burden decrease by over 20% by 2025 while their home equity has increased substantially. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index jumped more than 50% in the past five years. You’re being paid to borrow in a currency that’s being systematically destroyed.
The Path Forward
America stands at a crossroads.
We can continue down the path of fiat currency, unlimited money printing, and ever-mounting debt until the inevitable crisis arrives—sudden, violent, and catastrophic. Or we can make the hard choice to restore sound money, limit government, and rebuild the foundation of American prosperity.
The gold standard isn’t a panacea. It won’t solve every problem or eliminate every risk. But it would force the kind of fiscal discipline and honest accounting that makes sustainable prosperity possible.
For 54 years, we’ve lived in Richard Nixon’s world—a world of paper promises, government lies, and stolen wealth. The consequences of that decision are accelerating. The debt is exploding. The dollar is dying. Time is running out.
Gold is telling us the truth that Washington won’t: The current system is finished. The only question is whether we choose sound money before the crisis, or have it forced upon us after the collapse.
I know which future I’m preparing for. I hope you’ll join me.
Tom Anderson
Wall Street Watchdogs
