[DannyTN]

Scary only to people who hoard large amounts of cash in their mattress.

On the gold standard we had 20% year to year swings, but they averaged out on the side of deflation. Businesses were frequently run out of business because of the unstable money. But if you were hoarding cash, you did okay.

[LS]

It was never the "gold standard" that kept the economy sound: it was allowing banks to print their own money, based on whatever they chose to use as backing (of course, all used gold and silver in the 1800s). But even then, with or without the BUS, there were panics and depressions. It's a part of the business cycle. One of them, the Panic of 1837, was actually CAUSED by silver inflows, which abruptly stopped in about 1832.

But you're right that whether gold/no gold, private money issue or fed there are regular business cycles. Schumpter talked about that.