syd"In times of stress big money runs to the US$ for safety and...

syd

"In times of stress big money runs to the US$ for safety and other currencies / gold get clobbered."

Erh care to give examples?

So why did they take the USD off the gold standard for the public in the 30's and off the gold standard for other central banks in the 70's?

My understanding is that the USD lost about 95% of its value in the 20th century.

"They" ran to USD this time around because the overwhelming bulk of the credit lines were in USD and yen and so with the forced deleveraging of the last 4 months or so everyone has been trying to get hold on those currencies to back out of their debt obligations. But this is merely a temporary effect rather than structural strength in the USD IMO.

Mr Parrot

Thank you for continuing to post comments and observations that make total sense to me. Even if we are both end up being wrong it is good to have such articulate and entertaining company on such an ardous journey. :)