Hello all. I am a very new member to this forum, and am looking for some advice and opinions. I am currently researching the Gold Standard, and how it might me brought back into use. There are some obvious problems with instantly going back to gold (i.e. there is not enough to go around), but I was interested in seeing if anyone thought it could be don, and if it would be a decent idea.
problem with the gold standard is that the government can step in and change the rules at any time and it can have serious consequences(great depression by hoarding gold reserves and not allowing them to increase the money supply), same thing happens on a fiat standard(government can mess it up by printing too much), so in the end it doesnt matter the system you are in, you will need the government to behave
Unfortunately, Keynesian economics is firmly in place in the world and society is conditioned to discredit the gold standard. Fiat currency (not backed by anything) throughout history has always returned to the value of the paper it is printed on, zero. I believe the longest timespan a fiat currency has lasted is in the range of 40-50 years so we are closely approaching a new record. The <b>best</b> place for research on the gold standard is www.mises.org. They have tons of free documents on sound money. Good luck.. EDIT: Didn't even notice the question you asked. I believe Ron Paul has recommended issuing gold and silver certificates coincidentally with federal reserve notes and let the market duke it out... (no doubt which would win)
mises.org is a very biased group of folks. a gold standard sometimes have worked sometimes it has not http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxoHoVLO02o in some ways we can all thank Hayek for social security and other bad programs by pushing the 'hands off let things collapse' approach and making it possible for keynes and fdr start a gigantic multi-decade bull market in government spending
The have Milton Friedman literature too... He asked about the gold standard and nothing comes close to mises.org for that "biased gold standard" stuff.