When Nixon broke the link to gold he did it by simple Executive Order... his order actually said that he was just “suspending” gold convertibility rather than ending it permanently... so apparently Trump could counter Nixon’s E.O. with his own E.O. and we’d be back on the Bretton Woods gold standard.
The pressure on the gold standard back then was due to using the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. An economist named Triffin warned as early as 1960 that this wasn’t going to work, either the gold standard or the reserve currency role was going to have to end. Nixon chose to end gold. It would have been wiser to instead replace the dollar with a basket of currencies as the reserve currency.
Yep, complicated, gives me a headache...I have yet to find a definitive guide to money supply/currency regulation/reserve bank issues! Any suggestions? Wasn’t sure on “repo” rates either...found this brief description that helped:
“Overnight repo rate is the interest rate at which different market participants swap treasuries for cash to cover short-term cash needs. The repo rate is helping to ensure banks have the liquidity to meet their daily operational needs and maintain sufficient reserves. The repo rate usually trades in line with the Federal Reserve’s target interest rate.” So where did the N.Y. Fed get the $100 billion over the last few days to inject into the repo market? “Printed” $$ ?
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/repo-rate