“Or just maybe - there’s too many printed dollars? “
Exactly right...
The problem with gold backing is what it has always been. It provides CEOs of gold mining firms control of the global economy. Nobody elected them.
Nobody elected Fed Governors, either, but their whimsy is rather more diluted than a handful of CEOs.
Besides which, gold’s value is entirely imaginary.
Might want to try something with actual value as the basis, like oil. When oil production falls, then the money supply will too, and the economy — but when oil production falls that was going to happen anyway.