[Rockingham]

The FDIC's injections of emergency liquidity into the banks and that of the Fed into banks and other financial institutions were at least nominally based on established capital accounts.

The debauching of the money that you refer to is the Fed policy of "quantitative easing" in which the Fed buys bonds in the market in return for cash, with the sellers of the bonds then having additional cash to spend. When this cash is new money created by the Fed, it is a net addition to the stock of money in the economy.

I surmise though that your fundamental point is that since we are not on the gold standard and the dollar is not otherwise based on some other valuable commodity, the dollar is already "fiat money" and thoroughly debauched.

We disagree in that I do not see the gold standard as viable today for two reasons: (1) an essential premise -- international control of transfers and accumulations of gold -- is implausible without some sort of powerful global political authority; and (2), most of the world's mineable new gold is in countries that are corrupt and unstable (South Africa) or corrupt and unfriendly (Russia).

As for letting banks stand or fall based solely on the market and putting their depositors at risk, it would make the financial system fragile and unstable in a crisis. In the worst case, the result is the creation of a large class of victims among the ordinary public, thus building a mass sense of grievance and bringing discredit on the entire financial and political system.

That is what happened during the Great Depression -- and the Left never had a greater aid to their drive for power. I suggest that risking that again would be unwise in the extreme.

[BfloGuy]

We disagree in that I do not see the gold standard as viable today for two reasons: (1) an essential premise -- international control of transfers and accumulations of gold -- is implausible without some sort of powerful global political authority;

I understand your point. When the classical gold standard was still in effect, though, there was no need for a global authority. Most everyone agreed that it was the best system possible and honored its obligations.

(2),and most of the world's mineable new gold is in countries that are corrupt and unstable (South Africa) or corrupt and unfriendly (Russia).

That doesn't matter. The amount of gold the people of a particular country own only serves to control the pyramiding of paper money from it. One gram of gold is enough to underpin a stable currency for an entire country if its leaders are committed to it.