CAN THE U.S. RETURN TO A GOLD STANDARD?

Wall Street Journal ^ | September 1, 1981 | Alan Greenspan

[Jason_b]

"like the '55 Chevy, the gold standard has come and gone."

this is an excellent point. "

Latecomer to this old thread.

Not really an excellent point. Gold-as-money is not analagous to a '55 Chevy. Gold-as-money is analagous to....transportation.

Savers have always been screwed with fiat money. My dad is a retiree on a fixed income. A pension, being now paid off in CHEAP DEPRECIATED FIAT. His injury is in the higher prices he never imagined when he was working and saving. Back when he bought the family home for $35,000, he was saving expecting the purchasing power to remain constant. Today the same house is valued at more like $250,000. A zero was visibly added to the prices when the same zero was invisibly taken off the dollar. The fiat money does not hold value well enough. If he had bought gold ($35/oz) when he bought his house (1967), his purchasing power would have been preserved (give or take). The price of an ounce of gold has also added a zero when the same zero was invisibly taken off the dollar. I say invisibly because when the value of a paper Federal Reserve Note goes away, do you see it? No. It still has the same face value. You don't know about the loss of value until you try to spend it and find out how much prices have increased in the span of time that your money was was saved for spending later.