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In the lead up to Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff action earlier this week, I cited Ronald Reagan’s tax-cuts of 1981 as the last time a sitting president, with a stroke of a pen, changed the economic course of the nation. The Globe’s Larry Edelman does that historical analogy one better, going back a decade earlier to the famous ‘Nixon Shock’ of 1971, when President Nixon severed the ties between the dollar and gold, ordered a nationwide wage-and-price freeze, and imposed a 10 percent surcharge tariff on imports. The ‘Nixon Shock’ was also a huge economic gamble – and, as Larry notes, it didn’t quite work out as planned. Read Larry’s piece. It’s great. …

Re the ‘Nixon Shock,’ I did find this interview with Jeffrey Garten, author of “Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy.” And here’s a YouTube video of Nixon’s famous off-the-gold-standard speech in ’71.

Update – Uh ho. A Hub Blog reader sent me this “friendly reminder” of what may yet still come: “Bannon: Trump May Return The U.S. To A Gold Standard, Get Rid Of The Federal Reserve.”

Update II — From the NYT: “Paul Krugman on the ‘Biggest Trade Shock in History’”