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One can always exchange dollars by buying something.

That is beside the point.

Under the classical gold system, banks held their reserves in gold. When dollar-users suspected that too many had been issued, they could present their dollars at the teller's window and receive their equivalent in gold.

This had the effect of drawing down the bank's reserves thus decreasing their ability to pyramid loans from it and also served as a warning to the bank's officers that the public was growing skeptical of their performance.

This was the crucial component to the gold standard's working as well as it did. The ersatz gold standards adopted in Europe after WWI did not allow citizens the ability to exchange their currency for gold and failed miserably.

To this day, many still blame the gold standard for the Depression in Europe but it really wasn't one.

This is because those in control who desire to create more money will simply reduce the purity of the metal used for backing.

Another reason for gold as currency. Tampering with its purity is very easy to determine. That kings got away with it several centuries ago is a testament only to the lack of education and economic understanding of their subjects.

Corrupt financial elites are the source of continual problems, changing currencies won't affect that situation.

No monetary system can work to the benefit of the individual if his leaders are corrupt. There are some who are not. If one of those someday gains power, I hope he will push to reinstate hard money for the reasons I've stated.

One can always exchange dollars by buying something.

That is beside the point.

Under the classical gold system, banks held their reserves in gold. When dollar-users suspected that too many had been issued, they could present their dollars at the teller's window and receive their equivalent in gold.

There's not enough gold to make that possible any more. Let alone the fact that modern banks have enough difficulty coming up with cash when withdrawals are made. Fractional reserve introduces the risk of not being able to meet withdrawal requests on demand deposit accounts - but it allows the banks to use demand deposits as leverage (i.e., they are investing part of them and generating profits) so the practice was instituted by our banking friends despite the risks of bank insolvency. Somewhere around 2,000 banks have failed in the past few years, and the top 10 or so - one would think the strongest - received bailout loans from the government. Notice how it was not the Federal Reserve that bailed out the banks in its own Federal Reserve System, it was the taxpayer, via the Treasury. Requiring banks to keep gold as reserves would only complicate and exacerbate all our problems. If there was truly a popular demand for redeemable gold certificates - banks would be offering them. Then again, they'd be competing with all the existing sellers of gold and gold funds, and they'd be exposing themselves to the risk of fluctuations in the price of gold.

This had the effect of drawing down the bank's reserves thus decreasing their ability to pyramid loans from it and also served as a warning to the bank's officers that the public was growing skeptical of their performance.

"pyramid" is not an accounting term. I assume you mean use the same gold that "backs" the private money issued as collateral to borrow. That gold would already pledged as collateral to "back" the "private money", so the same gold would be pledged twice as collateral, which is fraudulent.

Perhaps you're describing a "fractional-reserve" banking where the reserves are held in gold. Again, if the price of gold drops, additional physical gold would have to be posted to the reserve. This would be simply introducing another variable in the banking business model, one that would add risk while doing very little to improve the either real or perceived solvency of banks.

This was the crucial component to the gold standard's working as well as it did.

Today we tend to think that the "old days", the glory days of, say, the 1800's were economic "smooth sailing" due to the gold standard, or at least inflation was very low and very consistent. Neither of these is true, they were ecnomoically chaotic times, due mostly to the machinations of financial elites.

This is because those in control who desire to create more money will simply reduce the purity of the metal used for backing.

Another reason for gold as currency. Tampering with its purity is very easy to determine. That kings got away with it several centuries ago is a testament only to the lack of education and economic understanding of their subjects.

I'm not talking about tampering, I'm talking about official government policy, i.e., a dictate that the currency is being devalued. The whole US government right now issues all sorts of dictates that are forced on the citizens of the US, some with popular political support after propagandizing, others they just shove down their throat by issuing policy changes and cue the news media to NOT report the changes. A few people in the know may howl with objections - but these changes are simply forced into law. Subjects or citizens, the public is, for the most part, stuck with its ruling elites and is ruled by them. And usually when they finally have "had enough" and there is a revolution, the elites are 10 steps ahead of them and have their operatives well-placed within its leadership.

Corrupt financial elites are the source of continual problems, changing currencies won't affect that situation.

No monetary system can work to the benefit of the individual if his leaders are corrupt. There are some who are not.

A single politician, i.e., 1 President, working against the Congress can't do much. Congress has to be in on the plan at least enough to get bills passed, the Judiciary needs to uphold the laws made. There needs to be quite a bit of popular support or Congress and the President won't do squat.

In truth, the citizenry is pitted against the ruling financial elites who run education, the news and entertainment media, the capital markets, the foundations, the intelligence agency leadership, Congress, the Executive Branch leadership (spans Presidents, a la Zbigniew Brzezinski, "advising" from Carter - and still at it), etc., and thus exert tremendous control behind the scenes (since the major news networks refuse to mention this corruption).

The ruling financial elites, through their foundations and lobbying organizations (both left and right), are the ones that "craft" legislation.