In August of that year, US president Richard Nixon was forced by a mountain of overseas debt, which made it impossible to maintain the value of the US dollar, to announce the abandonment of the Gold Standard. This broke the dollar's long-standing link to gold, by which US $ 35 could be exchanged for one ounce of the metal.
那年八月，美國總統尼克森迫於外債高築，美金幣值無以維持，宣告放棄「金本位」，原本行之多年、三十五美元可以兌換一英兩黃金的關連，就這樣被斬斷。