At one time the dollar was directly tied to gold. Other currencies were based on ours and thus there was a ‘gold standard’. The gold standard was abandoned in 1933 by President Franklin Roosevelt in efforts to combat the Great Depression. The final ties between gold and the dollar were severed in 1971 when Nixon ended foreign exchange of dollars for gold. Since then our paper money system has been backed by the government rather than gold or another asset. This allowed for th