🟪 Bretton Woods Was a Rigged Game—And It Was Always Going to Fail

Bretton Woods wasn’t a real gold standard—it was a gold exchange standard, a fiat scheme where only the U.S. dollar was supposedly tied to gold. But the system was doomed from the start. It let the U.S. print money without consequence while other countries were forced to play along.

🔳 The Fatal Flaw

French economist Jacques Rueff saw the problem early:

• The U.S. could run massive deficits without real pain because foreign central banks reinvested dollars instead of redeeming gold.

• This meant monetary inflation without restraint, breaking the natural checks of a true gold standard.

• Austrian economists like Rothbard warned that without real convertibility, the system was just controlled demolition in slow motion.

🔳 The Eurodollar Illusion

Many blame the Eurodollar market for Bretton Woods’ collapse. But from an Austrian perspective, this was a symptom, not the cause. The real issue?

• The U.S. printed too much money to fund the Vietnam War and welfare expansion.

• Foreign central banks had to inflate their own currencies to avoid their dollar reserves losing value.

• This global inflationary spiral inevitably pushed gold higher as the market lost trust in fiat.

Gold’s divergence from other commodities wasn’t random—it was monetary insurance against government theft. The free market was screaming: “The dollar is dying.”

🔳 Why Bretton Woods Collapsed

The final nail in the coffin wasn’t global trade imbalances or banking complexity. It was the fundamental contradiction at its core:

• The U.S. wanted unlimited monetary expansion and a fixed gold price.

• But inflation makes gold undervalued at the peg.

• Eventually, foreign countries (especially France) started calling the bluff—demanding gold instead of holding devaluing dollars.

By 1971, Nixon had two choices:

1. Stop inflating (and crash the system), or

2. Kill the gold standard and go full fiat.

He took the easy way out. The result? The permanent inflation regime we live under today.

🟧 The Lesson? Fiat Always Fails

Now #Nostr they want a new #Bretton Woods—a “reset” of the global financial system. But that’s just fiat 2.0. The only real solution is what the free market has always chosen: sound money.

Gold worked for centuries until governments hijacked it. But #Bitcoin is doing what gold couldn’t—removing trust from the equation entirely.

The choice isn’t between fiat 2.0 and fiat 3.0. It’s between central control and actual freedom. 21 million or bust.