Ad hominem arguments don't work for me. Besides, apart from the 2000 mega-correction, Gilder was totally right about the "telecosm". I'm listening to the audiobook. The book was actually written in 2015, when Gilder was no fan of candidate Trump. Gilder also has a lot of favorable things to say about China and its leaders.
Nonetheless, the gold standard recommendation resonates with me, and Gilder argues very cogently in favor of it. He traces the beginning of the economic malaise (which resulted in Trump's election) to 1971, when Nixon -- on the advice of Milton Friedman, no less -- took the U.S off the gold standard. This act began the 40+ year shafting of the American worker. During this period, productivity increased by 240% but wages increased by only 8%. Gilder argues that disconnecting the dollar from gold enabled the elites to repetitively manipulate the currency to their benefit, reserving almost all the gains in productivity to themselves. Friedman thought that currency was the one area where government should have a monopoly. Gilder says that Friedman was very naive about the potential for corruption.
Okay, forget about Gilder.
The real gold standard ended as a result of WWI.
The Great Depression was a direct result of the central banks attempting to return to the gold standard as it existed in 1914, resulting in a ferocious deflation.
What Nixon did was stop the redemption of US Dollars (USD) for gold at $35 per ounce, which was untenable. Gold was long gone as the “Standard” ... USD was the de facto standard since the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944.
The “Shafting of the American Worker” was due to the STRONG VALUE of the US Dollar compared with other currencies, not its weakening. Dollars were backed up by a lot of things, including the fact you had to have US Dollars to purchase OPEC oil. Sheesh!
NAFTA and the WTO were put in place by the collusion of the GHWB and Clinton administrations, who we now understand were two sides of the same coin. These horrible trade deals enabled globalist bankers to facilitate the export of American factories and jobs to nations with much weaker currencies.
Don’t get me wrong. Gold can be a very fine investment. I have had a lot of luck with it in my investment life, both mining companies and metal. But there will be no return to a “Gold standard,” nor should there be.