Nixon declared he was taking "action necessary to defend the dollar against the speculators." But there was no way to defend the dollar against politicians. Nixon touted his default as therapy for his tormented fellow citizens, promising it would "help us snap out of the self-doubt, the self-disparagement that saps our energy and erodes our confidence in ourselves." Nixon wrapped his decree with lofty political rhetoric, appealing to the nation's "greatest ideals" and promising a "new prosperity" that "befits a great people."

The dollar thus became a fiat currency – something which possessed value solely because politicians said so. Nixon spurred the Federal Reserve to create an artificial boom to boost his reelection campaign. To suppress the damage from a flood of new money, he imposed wage and price controls, making it a crime to raise prices without government permission.

At that time, I was working in a peach orchard in rural Virginia for 10 hours a day, reaping $1.40 an hour and all the peach fuzz I could take home on my arms and neck. Nixon's wage controls doomed any chance of getting that raise to $1.45 an hour. But no loss – I was leaving that job soon to go back to high school. I was 15 at that time and an avid coin collector. I soaked up the rage at the reckless federal policies that permeated Coin News and other numismatic publications.  "Government as scoundrel" was the theme of many editorials and articles I read in those periodicals in the following months and years. I had no savvy on economics but my gut sense told me something was profoundly amiss. Nixon's decree spurred my reading and researching. 

Nixon's gold default was also a landmark for America's rising economic and political illiteracy. In the era of this nation's birth, currency was often recognized as a character issue – specifically, the contemptible character of politicians. Shortly before the 1787 Constitutional Convention, George Washington warned that unsecured paper money will "ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice." The Coinage Age of 1792 established gold and silver as the foundation for the nation's currency and authorized a death penalty for anyone who debased the nation's gold or silver coins.