"Under a gold standard, if people think the paper money printed by government is losing value, they have the right to switch to gold. Fiat money -- i.e., currency with no intrinsic worth that government has decreed legal tender -- loses its value when government creates more than can be absorbed by the productive real economy."

Judy Shelton Says Let's Abolish Legal Tender Laws and Go Back to the Gold Standard - WSJ.com

Digg - WallStreetJournal - Gold Standard Needed - RP was right!

Great find Rhonda! Getting that article into the WSJ is pretty amazing.
Consider it dugg

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"The gold standard is the negation of slavery and the empowerment of virtue"
If voting changed anything they would have made it illegal.

That's a great article Rhonda, cheers.

I've enjoyed reading about this topic - while I did economics in Leaving Cert that was almost ten years ago. Thanks guys for an enlightening discussion - if there was a Discussion of the Month award I'd definately nominate this topic. I've learnt many things from the debate, which can't be said about other threads (no offense guys ).

From what I've read, I do think that there could very well be a future in a new gold standard. I think perhaps that with banks and governments alike suffering from crises of confidence, you need some commodity which is real, tangible and limited in supply to act as a store of value and which does not depend on confidence in regulation.

I wouldn't necessarily agree with using gold itself as a currency but certainly would approve of a currency which is 100% backed by commodities like gold or silver, as even if they fall in value, as I understand it, it is impossible for gold or silver to become totally worthless, unlike, say, the Zimbabwean Dollar, and a currency backed by commodities would also hold some value.

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A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul.
–George Bernard Shaw