[justshutupandtakeit]

Gold or other metals will never be a monetary standard again anymore than bleeding will be re-introduced as a cure-all. To move to such a standard would cause an immediate shrinkage of the money supply and collapse the economy.

Actual use of a gold standard has been quite limited whenever there has been a strong state in play. The first thing that happens in a crisis is that convertibility is suspended. Even when there was such a standard debasement, clipping and other manipulation caused immense problems. Metals are not a panacea and are inherently deflationary. No state is going to place its money supply in the hands of arbitrary discoveries of metals in this day and age.

It should be recalled that the demand for a central bank started in the 1880s in the West (where gold and silver were mined) because of a chronic lack of money. Money center banks in the East opposed it for decades because their power would have been reduced by such a bank. Most of the gold/silver wound up there drained away from the rest of the country.

[Alberta's Child]

Gold or other metals will never be a monetary standard again anymore than bleeding will be re-introduced as a cure-all. To move to such a standard would cause an immediate shrinkage of the money supply and collapse the economy.

You're going to have to explain that one to me -- I'm not sure that's true at all.