Regarding William J. Luther and Alexander William Salter’s “Lessons for Today From the Gold Standard” (op-ed, Aug. 3): Famed management consultant Peter Drucker, in his 1969 essay “The Sickness of Government,” wrote that “government has proven itself capable of doing only two things with great effectiveness. It can wage war. And it can inflate the currency.” President Richard Nixon proved him right two years later, removing the link to the Polaris of money, which unleashed the inflation of the 1970s. Fortunately, that same year, Milton Friedman provided the intellectual force behind ending military conscription, which reduced the probability that we would wage large wars in the future.
Scott Kaufmann
Kansas City, Kan.
International currencies remained relatively stable when the U.S. dollar was pegged to gold and established as the reserve currency by the Bretton Woods agreement. Today, currency risk plagues multinational trade and permits manipulation to gain favorable exchange rates.
