Journalism thrives on simple narratives and round numbers. So I must note that what President Nixon ended 50 years ago was not the international gold standard, which persisted despite interruptions for more than two millennia to 1914, but its complicated parody: the gold-exchange standard, established 99, not 50, years ago by a 1922 agreement at Genoa. Prime Minister David Lloyd George convened the Genoa Conference in an effort to restore the economies of Central and Eastern Europe, modify the...
