45年来美元为何不跟黄金挂钩

45年前，也就是1971年8月15日，美国总统理查德·尼克松宣布不再采用此前30多年一直主宰美元乃至全球货币价值的货币体系。对大多数美国人来说，这条被称为“尼克松冲击”的消息实际上并无冲击力。越南战争消耗了美国的资源，国际货币市场投机盛行，美国在20世纪70年代出现了历史上最高的赤字。

尼克松在新经济政策讲话中表示：“在过去七年中，平均每年都会出现一次国际货币危机。那么谁从这些危机中获利了呢？不是劳工阶层，不是投资者，不是真正的财富创造者。获利的是那些国际货币投机者。他们大发危机财，因而在制造危机方面起了推波助澜的作用。最近几周，这些投机者正在全力攻击美元。一国货币的实力取决于其经济实力，而美国经济目前仍是世界最强的。相应的，我已经命令财政部长采取必要措施来保护美元，抵御这些投机者。”

采取什么措施呢？“暂时停止将美元兑换为黄金。”

尼克松宣布此项决定时，《时代》周刊解释了为何会采取这样的行动：

“美国政府表示，将不再用联邦黄金储备兑换外国人持有的美元，从而切断了美元和黄金的联系。1944年，也就是现行货币体系在新罕布什尔州布雷顿森林镇确立以来，美元一直是国际上唯一跟黄金挂钩的货币。从技术上讲，黄金是国家用于偿还债务的资产。但实际上，按照从布雷顿森林会议发展而来的国际货币基金组织（IMF）的118个成员国制定的规则，美元其实是国家之间进行债务结算的汇兑媒介。这个体系得以运行是因为美国财政部承诺以35美元1盎司的价格将美元兑换为黄金。这项承诺让IMF成员国相信，无论什么时候想把用于偿债的美元兑换成黄金，这些成员国只需要向美国财政部开口。

过去10年中，美国在七个年头里出现了国际收支逆差，这造成美国黄金储备稳步下降。看到1971年上半年的国际收支情况时，尼克松知道需要采取重大措施。美国商务部在一周前公布，1971年上半年美国国际收支逆差达到创纪录的116亿美元。按照这样的速度，年底这个数字将达到320亿美元。外国人持有的美元是美国黄金兑换能力的三倍。同时，由于开始对美国掌控经济的意愿和能力失去信心，他们的黄金需求越来越大。为防止联邦黄金储备遭到挤兑，尼克松宣布美国不再承担美元换黄金的义务。

这就意味着美元不再等同于黄金。因此，外国人被迫不惜代价地在货币市场抛售美元。由于全球美元供给已经过剩，这些卖家的期望不会太高。这实际上已经令美元贬值。”

尽管尼克松特别说明这是“临时”措施，实际上已经没有回头路可走。在随后的几十年里，美国和世界经济一直在没有黄金提供帮助的情况下起起伏伏。不过，甚至是在几十年以后，黄金依然吸引着众多所谓的“拜金者”。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：詹妮

It was 45 years ago, on Aug. 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that the decades-old monetary system that had controlled the U.S. dollar—and thus the world’s currency values—for more than three decades just wasn’t working anymore. To most Americans the news, known as the “Nixon shock,” wasn’t actually shocking. War in Vietnam had drained America’s resources, world currency speculation was rampant and 1970s saw the biggest deficit thus far in U.S. History.

“In the past seven years, there has been an average of one international monetary crisis every year,” Nixon said in his speech outlining his new economic policy. “Now who gains from these crises? Not the workingman; not the investor; not the real producers of wealth. The gainers are the international money speculators. Because they thrive on crises, they help to create them. In recent weeks, the speculators have been waging an all-out war on the American dollar. The strength of a nation’s currency is based on the strength of that nation’s economy—and the American economy is by far the strongest in the world. Accordingly, I have directed the Secretary of the Treasury to take the action necessary to defend the dollar against the speculators.”

That action? To “suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold.”

When Nixon announced what was coming, TIME explained why the move was on its way:

“Washington cut the dollar’s tie to gold by serving notice that it will no longer cash in foreign-held dollars for gold bullion held at Fort Knox. Ever since 1944, when the present monetary system was devised at Bretton Woods, N.H., the dollar has had a special and internationally unique relationship to gold. Technically, gold is the asset by which nations pay their debts to one another. But practically, under the rules of the 118-nation International Monetary Fund, which evolved from the Bretton Woods conference, dollars are actually the medium of exchange through which nations settle those debts. The system was made possible by a promise from the U.S. Treasury to redeem dollars for gold at $35 an ounce. Because of that promise, IMF member nations had been assured that whenever they wanted gold in exchange for the dollars that they held as payment of debts, all they had to do was ask the Treasury Department in Washington.

U.S. gold reserves have dwindled steadily as a result of the nation’s balance of payments deficits in seven out of the last ten years. When Nixon got a look at the figures for the first six months of this year, he knew that drastic action was necessary. Last week the Department of Commerce released those figures: the U.S. ran a record first-half deficit of $11.6 billion. At that rate, the deficit would be $23 billion by year’s end. Foreigners held three times as many dollars as the U.S. was capable of redeeming in gold, and they were demanding more and more gold because they were losing confidence in the U.S.’s will or ability to whip its economy into order. To prevent a run on Fort Knox, the President thus declared that the nation would no longer exchange dollars for gold.

That meant that the dollar was no longer as good as gold. Thus foreigners had to sell their dollars in money markets for whatever they could get. Since a surfeit of dollars was sloshing around the world already, they could not expect to get much. In effect the dollar had been devalued.”

There was, essentially, no going back, despite Nixon’s “temporarily” caveat. In the decades that followed, the U.S. and world economies would rise and fall and rise and fall, without the help of gold. Even decades later, however, the lure of gold still calls to many so-called goldbugs.