President Nixon suspended dollar convertibility to gold, effectively terminating Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system and ushering era of floating currencies and financial deregulation. This unilateral decision reflected U.S. inability to maintain gold reserves amid Vietnam War spending and trade deficits. Fiat money regime unleashed speculative capital flows and neoliberal policies prioritizing monetary flexibility over stability.

Language poets like Charles Bernstein and Lyn Hejinian emerged during post-Bretton Woods uncertainty, treating language itself as unstable currency whose value depended on contextual exchange rather than inherent meaning. Postmodern skepticism toward grand narratives paralleled distrust of stable monetary anchors in floating exchange regime. Financialization themes entered poetry as poets registered abstraction of value in derivatives markets detached from material production.