Loading ...part:
By 1971, as America’s trade deficits increased and its domestic spending soared, the perceived economic stability of Washington was being publicly challenged by many nations around the globe. Foreign nations could sense the severe economic difficulties mounting in Washington as the United States was under financial pressure at home and abroad. According to most estimates, the Vietnam War had a price tag in excess of $200 billion. This mounting debt, plus other debts incurred through a series of poor fiscal and monetary policies, was highly problematic given America’s global monetary role.
But it was not America’s financial issues that most concerned the international economic community. Instead, it was the growing imbalance of U.S. gold reserves to debt levels that was most alarming.
Basically, the United States had accumulated large amounts of new debts but did not have the money to pay for them. Making matters worse, U.S. gold reserves were at all-time lows as nation upon nation began requesting gold in exchange for their dollar holdings. It was almost as if foreign nations could see the writing on the wall for the end of the Bretton Woods arrangement.
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system/
Comment: We paid for WWII Korea and Vietnam and a moon landing all for global benefit, and then lost half our gold supplies to the people we helped that were redeeming the dollars for gold.