In their impossibly good book Money, Markets, and Sovereignty (2009), Benn Steil and Manuel Hinds make the point that over the last four thousand years, the only period in which humanity has not consistently based its currency in metal, specifically gold, is the last forty. That’s right. Ever since President Richard M. Nixon announced forty years ago today, on August 15, 1971, that the U.S. would no longer officially trade dollars for gold, we have been enjoying a new era of human history.
Tobacco and seashells were money before Nixon was born.
The Captain
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I suspect that they be again
Not to worry, the suspension was only a temporary one 
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Don’t forget the stone money on Yap.
DB2
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Anything that people use as money. Cigarettes in jail. They come in useful denominations, singles, packs of ten, twenty, and cartons…
The Captain
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J P Morgan
Gold is money everything else is credit
I’m still swapping credit for money
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