I’m not a fan of some of the policy decisions of President Richard Nixon. There are two areas that I feel will make people reconsider him. His decision to pull the U.S. Dollar off the gold standard made the Dollar free float.  The Nixon Doctrine was another of his position that is seriously debated. These two policy decisions of President Nixon helped to bring the dollar back under the control of the U.S. Government and the U.S. Federal Reserve system. While many criticized his action known as the “Nixon Shock” he defended the U.S. economy. His actions caused the U.S. economy/dollar to rise on his actions. One of the most controversial decisions was the “Nixon doctrine” which states that every nation is responsible for its defense but the U.S. will be used for a nuclear umbrella. Many look at the foreign policy aspect of his doctrine but few look at the reasons why he did it. The U.S. was a major industrial exporter in the world at the time. The policy of President Nixon was to use the military/nuclear might of America against foreign meddling in trade pacts where U.S. jobs were at risk.

This aspect deserves a closer look but people are products of their time. I can’t take today’s standard and applied it to the past so yes there are things I agree with but things I disagree with.

This is a second of a two-part series on the attempted transformation of the U.S. government to better support the economy.

Founding Purpose: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

The mechanism for achieving this goal is Capitalism and Democracy.