The gold standard is little more than a change in the target by which funds are added and removed to the system. Instead of targeting interest rates or whatever arbitrary target the feds favor from time to time it targets the dollar price of gold.
The bretton woods system had some extra stuff added that is fairly meaningless. Agreements between countries. A mechanism by which the government would give gold to other countries who wanted to turn in $s.
If you wish to understand it, start here:
http://newworldeconomics.com/GTMPpage.html
Many of the other thoughts in this thread really have nothing to do with it:
"repeal of Bretton Woods led to the financial deregulation and Wall St. feeding frenzy"
They had financial panics and all kinds of gimmickry before 1972. The only real change has been the areas of finance that make money off of changing exchange and interest rates. Those are more or less complete wastes of money
"the world's money supply as a whole cannot be expanded without finding more gold deposits"
This is nonsense. This was never the case under a gold standard.
"debtor vs creditor nations"
Nations borrowed and lent money long before 1972 - very little has changed in this regard since then.
I've only ever been able to trace an impact on the economy of the current system (vs the old one) when there are significant changes in the $ price of gold. For example the runup from 1997-2000 and the recession of 2001 were caused by the decrease in the $ price of gold as the economy grew. Black Monday in 1987 due to an interview Greenspan gave saying he might devalue. The current oil booms in the US are because gold went from a $350 norm up above $1500 - and as it falls the investment stops. Bracket creep in the 1970's and the stagnation.
The main difference between being on a gold standard vs our current one is that these items (and others) simply would not have happened. A huge amount of wealth lost. Something that will have to be undone with time.
The bretton woods system had some extra stuff added that is fairly meaningless. Agreements between countries. A mechanism by which the government would give gold to other countries who wanted to turn in $s.
If you wish to understand it, start here:
http://newworldeconomics.com/GTMPpage.html
Many of the other thoughts in this thread really have nothing to do with it:
"repeal of Bretton Woods led to the financial deregulation and Wall St. feeding frenzy"
They had financial panics and all kinds of gimmickry before 1972. The only real change has been the areas of finance that make money off of changing exchange and interest rates. Those are more or less complete wastes of money
"the world's money supply as a whole cannot be expanded without finding more gold deposits"
This is nonsense. This was never the case under a gold standard.
"debtor vs creditor nations"
Nations borrowed and lent money long before 1972 - very little has changed in this regard since then.
I've only ever been able to trace an impact on the economy of the current system (vs the old one) when there are significant changes in the $ price of gold. For example the runup from 1997-2000 and the recession of 2001 were caused by the decrease in the $ price of gold as the economy grew. Black Monday in 1987 due to an interview Greenspan gave saying he might devalue. The current oil booms in the US are because gold went from a $350 norm up above $1500 - and as it falls the investment stops. Bracket creep in the 1970's and the stagnation.
The main difference between being on a gold standard vs our current one is that these items (and others) simply would not have happened. A huge amount of wealth lost. Something that will have to be undone with time.