[1] The term was coined in the 1960s by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, then the French Minister of Finance.
In the Bretton Woods system put in place in 1944, U.S. dollars were convertible to gold between countries.
As American economist Barry Eichengreen summarized: "It costs only a few cents for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to produce a $100 bill, but other countries had to pony up $100 of actual goods in order to obtain one.
[3][4] As it resulted in considerably reducing U.S. gold stock and U.S. economic influence, it led U.S. President Richard Nixon to end the convertibility of the dollar to gold on August 15, 1971 (the "Nixon Shock").
This was meant to be a temporary measure but the dollar became permanently a floating fiat money and in October 1976, the U.S. government officially changed the definition of the dollar; references to gold were removed from statutes.