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Nathan Lewis, author of Gold: The Once and Future Money, is advocating a return to the gold-standard dollar in order to stave off US economic worries and to save us from the declining dollar. Sounds like Lewis is having some kind of happy historic delusional flashback. Haven't we tried this before? The U.S. used to have a gold standard dollar, and sure, it was a strict disciplinarian for governments (you can't just print more gold like you can with currency, and the value of gold is less dependent on people's expectations of government actions), but the gold-standard dollar had a slew of its own problems. In the past, problems with the gold standard dollar included difficulty expanding the money supply to promote business growth (this has been cited as an aggravating factor in the Great Depression). Sure, gold is fairly stable, but in a complex and global economy like the modern U.S., returning to a gold-standard dollar is no cure-all. As perfect as these "golden days" may look right now, how does one logistically handle a return to the gold standard dollar after 36 years off of it?
About this poster:
Posted by:
vwalker
(female, mid-30s)
(Posted 11/26/07)
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Gold Standard Dollar--A Royally Bad Idea
