[BfloGuy]

But here we get into whether we want the GOZ currency actually to have ounces of gold sitting in a vault, enough to back every paper or electronic ounce.

If we do want that “backing” gold in a vault, at today’s dollar price of gold, there is nowhere near enough gold available to the US Treasury to back the GOZ currency that would translate to the USD that is now in paper or electronic form.

Though I prefer to be a purist, partial backing would be better than none. It is the ability to exchange dollars for gold when one fears that too much paper currency is being issued that enforces the gold standard.

I understand that isn't a perfect system and, really, I've no interest tonight in getting into a discussing of 100% reserve vs. fractional reserve banking. It can be fascinating, but we're so far down the inflation curve that fractional reserve would serve us well.

[PieterCasparzen]

Though I prefer to be a purist, partial backing would be better than none. It is the ability to exchange dollars for gold when one fears that too much paper currency is being issued that enforces the gold standard.

One can always exchange dollars by buying something.

People exchanging dollars for gold won't put any pressure on the financial elites when they create too many dollars. The elites control both dollar creation and the gold market, and they can invest in either at any time - and in advance of market moves. To wit, Soros was into gold prior to the run-up and exited just before the peak, when the retail customer was being whipped up into a frenzy of gold buying. Of course, he's just one, there certainly are many others that are tied in closely with new world order.

A gold or other precious metal standard does nothing to prevent money creation of such a large scale that it causes inflation. This is because those in control who desire to create more money will simply reduce the purity of the metal used for backing. It actually happened to the Spanish empire and was written about contemporaneously by Juan de Mariana. Strangely, economists of the Austrian school have written about this and are quite well aware of it. They obviously then know that a "gold standard" is no guard against excessive money printing.

One of de Mariana's works, "A Treatise on the Alteration of Money", is available online as a downloadable PDF...

"The Political Economy of Juan de Mariana" is available for free as a downloadable PDF from google books (you just have to click on the "gear" on the far top right, under the sign in button to see the option to download the PDF. You might have to allow cookies, at least temporarily, I'm not sure). It appears to have be republished by the Ludwig Von Mises Institute in 2008.

Corrupt financial elites are the source of continual problems, changing currencies won't affect that situation.