Why did Nixon introduce the fiat policy in 1971?

[MichaeltAFLt]

Wouldn't the economy be much more secure if paper money was backed up by something in order to be printed by the Federal Reserve?

 

[GoAheadaMakeMyDay]

Apparently he was not a crook.

 

[MikeW]

We dropped the gold standard as the deficit grew and gold reserves started to dwindle. He felt that remaining on the gold standard would cause a collapse of our economy. Franklin Roosevelt also dropped us of the gold standard for a time, for the same reasons.