What the F#%^ Happened in 1971? The Dramatic Acceleration of our Current Economic Collapse…

Nixon Takes Us off The Gold Standard and Dollar Debasement and Economic Collapse Begins

Nixon addressed the nation when he suspended the convertibility of the US Dollar to gold (while carving out exceptions for cronies), which effectively declared the US to be bankrupt and unable to pay its debts in gold as promised. While he didn’t use those terms in this address, that is the correct term for when you can’t pay what you have promised. He also simultaneously raised taxes on things Americans were importing as he simultaneously cut their purchasing power by devaluing the currency while dressing it up as a “good thing” for the working man in the typical lies of a politician.

Commentary by Etienne de la Boetie2, Founder of the Art of Liberty Foundation and author of “Government” - The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed!

Behind the Paywall This Week: What you can do to help protect the purchasing power of the dollars you earn and save…

Charts and Graphs by wtfhappenedin1971.com

The charts and graphs below from WTF Happened in 1971 are some of the most fascinating I have ever seen. What is most interesting is that the site owner failed to “Lead with the Punchline” and didn’t explain What the F%#$ Happened in 1971.

The short answer is that President Nixon took the country off the final vestiges of the gold standard, creating the widespread economic and societal decline that you see represented in the charts and graphs.

The beginning of debasement started with communist Presidents Woodrow Wilson, who passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 and Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he confiscated the people’s gold under “executive order” in 1933, but foreign governments could still purchase and redeem US Government Bonds in physical gold up until 1971. 

Why would either President take such steps knowing them to be so harmful?

Our thesis is that after organized crime bankers lobbied and bribed the “government” to pass the Federal Reserve Act, they began using the ability of fractional reserve banking to begin “legally”/illegally counterfeiting U.S. Dollars. By 1933, they could no longer cover the potential redemptions for gold coin, so they had their puppet Roosevelt confiscate everyone’s gold.

Foreign countries and central banks could still convert USD-denominated bonds to gold under the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944, but ridiculous criminal counterfeiting and debasement continued until foreign countries began to scramble for real gold in a high-stakes game of musical chairs. The charade was over by 1971, when France reportedly sent a warship to swap out its rapidly depreciating fiat paper tickets for real gold.

Here is a summary from Quora:

• It was a Sunday, August 16, 1971, and President Richard Nixon suspended convertibility of the US dollar into gold, effectively ending the 25-year Bretton Woods era of fixed currency exchange rates against the US dollar. US gold reserves were facing enormous pressure due to balance of payment concerns, the Vietnam War debt and Great Society programs, and the ensuing monetary inflation. A growing number of countries began to redeem their dollar holdings for gold.

• In addition, the German withdrawal from the Bretton Woods agreement sparked panic and a currency crisis. By the end of June 1971, $22 billion in assets had left the US. In July 1971, Switzerland redeemed $50 million for gold and one month later in August, pulled its Swiss Franc from the Bretton Woods agreement. At the same time, France redeemed $191 million for gold by sending a French battleship to New York to take delivery of the gold from the Federal Reserve and to bring back to France.

France sent a warship (some reported it as a battleship, but France had none. It was a destroyer) to New York (other reports indicated it was New Jersey) harbor in early August 1971 with instructions to bring back its gold from the New York Federal Reserve Bank.  Etienne Note:  The same Quora article reports it was actually a French ASW Instruction Ship called: Ocean. It was reported to be a Battleship by this 2016 Paper on the Incident: A "Barbarous Relic": The French, Gold, and the Demise of Bretton Woods

In August 1971, French president Pompidou sent a battleship to New York harbor to remove France’s gold from the vault of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and to transport it to the Banque de France in Paris. Soon thereafter, gold accounted for 92 percent of French reserves. On August 11, the British requested that the Treasury remove the $3 billion of gold from the U.S. depository of Fort Knox to the New York Federal Reserve vault, where the gold of foreign governments was stored. As Paul Volcker, who was then treasury undersecretary for monetary affairs, put it: “If the British, who had founded the system with us, and who had fought so hard to defend their own currency, were going to take gold for their dollars, it was clear the game was indeed over.”70 When Nixon spoke on August 15, 1971, the U.S. held less than 10,000 tons of gold, less than half of what it once had.

Once the final gold backing was removed, the debasement, collapse and economic warfare against the people that we are witnessing today began in full, as evidenced by the charts and graphs from WTF Happened in 1971 below:

WTF Happened In 1971?

“I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.” – F.A. Hayek 1984

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Etienne Note: Hat Tip to Epic Cash’s Max Freeman for bringing this website to my attention

About the Author

Etienne de la Boetie² is the founder of the Art of Liberty Foundation, the author of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! and the editor of the Art of Liberty Daily News on Substack and Five Meme Friday, which delivers hard-hitting voluntaryist memes and the best of the alternative media.

He is the author of The Covid-19 Suspects and Their Ties to Eugenics and Population Control/Reduction and Solving Covid - The Covid 19, Eugenics, and Vaccine/Drug Scam Timeline

About the Art of Liberty Foundation

A start-up public policy organization: Voluntaryist crime fighters exposing inter-generational organized crime’s control of the “government,” media and academia. The foundation is the publisher of “Government” - The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed!- How Inter-Generational Organized Crime Runs the”Government,” Media and Academia.

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Behind the Paywall This Week:

What you can do to help protect the purchasing power of the dollars you earn and save…