The Second Amendment: A Critique The second amendment to the Articles of Agreement dispensed with three millennia of attention to the international monetary system. It was the brain child of William Simon, a Wall Street tycoon, when he was Secretary of the Treasury. It paved the way for the global inflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s when the price of gold soared to over $850 an ounce. It left the global economy without a rudder for national policy mix and without an anchor for inflation control.