"One of the key elements was that the dollar would be pegged to gold at $35 an ounce. Other central banks could exchange the dollars they held for gold. In that sense, the dollar was as good as gold. Every other currency had a fixed exchange rate to the dollar."
Has anything like this ever happened in human history before this? It almost seems like a magic trick that we could tie "fiat currency" (if I'm using the term currently) to gold. We're on the tail end of a crazy one-of-a-kind experiment, if I understand everything correctly.
Great summary of this exceptional century. It reminds me of how deep ecosystems respond when a whale corpse drops to the sea floor. How the various complex systems respond to growing energy scarcity will be very interesting. In ecology reliable resource limits tend to spur the creation of hyperdiverse ecosystems. If we can avoid tearing each other apart there could be an unexpected long tail of increasingly efficient use of the remaining oil output.
"One of the key elements was that the dollar would be pegged to gold at $35 an ounce. Other central banks could exchange the dollars they held for gold. In that sense, the dollar was as good as gold. Every other currency had a fixed exchange rate to the dollar."
Has anything like this ever happened in human history before this? It almost seems like a magic trick that we could tie "fiat currency" (if I'm using the term currently) to gold. We're on the tail end of a crazy one-of-a-kind experiment, if I understand everything correctly.
Truly a very insightful analysis. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
Great summary of this exceptional century. It reminds me of how deep ecosystems respond when a whale corpse drops to the sea floor. How the various complex systems respond to growing energy scarcity will be very interesting. In ecology reliable resource limits tend to spur the creation of hyperdiverse ecosystems. If we can avoid tearing each other apart there could be an unexpected long tail of increasingly efficient use of the remaining oil output.