[1010RD]

Correct. This love affair with gold that some conservatives have is silliness. Money is an agreed upon tender. Our money happens to be green paper with dead presidents and numbers on it, universally trusted. Why would gold be more useful or trusted?

Money will eventually just be wholly digitized. If you think politicians play with it now, wait until then. Once trust breaks down it’s hard to restore.

[bert]

the green stuff you call money is merely physical representation of entries on electronic ledgers

[TexasRepublic]

Your second paragraph answers why gold is desirable. Gold is an escape from the evils of a digital cashless society.

[expat_panama]

love affair with gold that some conservatives have is silliness

Yeah, and there are some huge misunderstandings w/ the willfully ignorant that really muddy the discourse.  Two facts that we all need to remember:

The dollar and gold are already tied together.  Right now it's set at $1,158.45/oz by the free market and we can expect the ratio to change just as it kept changing for hundreds of years.

Most dollars are created not by the printing press, not by the Fed, but by banks both in the U.S. and all over the world --and it's been that way for hundreds of years both with and w/o gold.

[Hugin]

Why would gold be more useful or trusted?

Because it can't be created by fiat. Which is why governments will never go back to it.