[ctdonath2]

Despite Cruz being my by-far top choice, the “gold standard” rhetoric loses me - not because I don’t like it, but because it’s practically impossible.

There simply isn’t enough gold.

Exact figures I’ve computed prior escape me at the moment, but it’s something like:
- we’d have to acquire around 1/5th of all gold ever mined
- gold price would have to increase some 33x what it is now.
Ain’t happening.

What we need is a proper way (I’ve not yet developed an opinion on how) to have a currency whose sum total represents the total value of the USA, increasing quantity of units as the national value increases a la annual GDP, without changing the amount (”slice”) of value represented by that currency unit.

[thackney]

we’d have to acquire around 1/5th of all gold ever mined
gold price would have to increase some 33x what it is now.

Do not the second greatly change the first?

[Alberta's Child]

I don’t think fixing our currency to a gold standard requires a government to own enough gold to back every dollar in circulation. I’d be curious to hear what other folks here have to say about this.

[wattsgnu]

In the article, it states, “ A country doesn’t need a pile of gold to make a gold-based arrangement work any more than a builder needs to have a warehouse full of measuring tapes to construct a skyscraper. “ I have to admit to being ignorant to how the gold standard works and how our system now works. (And I consider myself educated- college degree, electrical engineering.) I am weak on other economic issues like QE as well.

[thackney]

A quick math checks shows greatly different numbers than your claim.

1,390,000,000,000 dollars

http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12773.htm

1,123 dollars per ounce

http://www.jmbullion.com/charts/gold-price/

So the dollars in circulation equals at current prices

1,237,535,613 ounces or,
77,345,976 pounds or,
38,673 tons

In 2011, this stated all the gold that had ever been mined at:
181,881 tons

http://www.numbersleuth.org/worlds-gold/

So at current prices, 1/5 of the existing gold.

If buying gold to make that happen quadrupled the price, it would drop to 1/20.

And further, would it have to only be gold?

[Georgia Girl 2]

Yes my problem with the gold standard is that first the US has no gold to speak of and also it would push gold to about $66,000 per oz. I don’t see how you make that work although I wish we could.

[BfloGuy]

There simply isn’t enough gold/i>

Any amount of gold will work to back the dollar. All that matters is that the ratio of gold to dollars is maintained.