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The History of the Dollar System From Bretton Woods to QE Infinity, Feat. Luke Gromen
A look at how we went from the Bretton Woods system of gold-backed USD to the QE Infinity of today.

A look at how we went from the Bretton Woods system of gold-backed U.S. dollars to the Federal Reserve's QE Infinity of today.
For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Stitcher, RadioPublica, IHeartRadio or RSS.
QE infinity from the Fed. Corporate bailouts. Nudgin' UBI. The incredible economic phenomena going on now didn’t happen out of the blue. They are the byproducts of key events spread across the 70-year history of the U.S. dollar-led global monetary system.
Luke Gromen is the founder of Forest From The Trees, a macro/thematic research firm. In this episode, Luke provides a TL;DR on those key events that got us to where we are today, including:
- Bretton Woods and why the world went on a USD-based system rather than John Maynard Keynes' idea for a non-sovereign "bancor" world reserve currency
- The move to the petrodollar in the 1970s
- The financialization of commodities that started in the 1980s
- The monetary policy vacuum after the Cold War ended
- How a shift in executive compensation rules led to many of today’s problems with Wall Street
- The export of Treasury bills as a business model
- The fallout of 2008 globally and domestically
- The end of Treasury bill buying in 2014
- Why the Fed is the only sugar daddy left
See also: Rebuilding the Resilience Economy, Feat. Anthony Pompliano
For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Stitcher, RadioPublica, IHeartRadio or RSS.
Nathaniel Whittemore
NLW is an independent strategy and communications consultant for leading crypto companies as well as host of The Breakdown – the fastest-growing podcast in crypto. Whittemore has been a VC with Learn Capital, was on the founding team of Change.org, and founded a program design center at his alma mater Northwestern University that helped inspire the largest donation in the school’s history.
