Hey, that’s great! Let’s go back and make it convertible to the “legally allowed” amount that it was back in 1971. That would actually work. Still want gold as a reserve currency?
Note the value of gold was federally locked at $35 an ounce for 40 years from the 30s to the 70s. Gold bugs, careful what you wish for. A gold standard is unlikely to produce a favorable result for your gold holdings.
The US government did exactly this in 1933 when they ripped off their own citizens:
Creating money out of thin air with the government/bankers (same thing really) in total control - what could possibly go wrong 
Yes, of course it is 
If there was a revaluation of gold and a fixed price I might not keep my stash
Heh, you wouldn’t get a choice in the matter. The first step to a new gold standard would be confiscation of private ownership of gold.
What do you think a gold standard would actually accomplish? Look at the value of the dollar from the 30s to the 70s? See how much value it lost? Is it your perception that it would somehow be different? Do you think it would keep the federal reserve from creating more money if it needed to?
Think about this, if the government can artificially and arbitrarily set the price of gold, what keeps it from adjusting that price if it simply needs to print more dollars? In other words, a gold standard is not any different than fiat currency when it is the government setting the price of the standard.
That would be nice, but I don’t think that it will happen, and that’s not why I hold gold.
Since the US defaulted on The Bretton Woods agreement gold has risen by about 8% pa.
It also forms some kind of insurance as there is little counterparty risk- just the thieving governments/bankers (1933 in the USA).
If there is any hint of government seizure then I have a plan
…and don’t forget that the dollar is just a derivative of gold
Heh, I have a plan for that
Well, you did everything you could. Now you are stuck with some gold.
Well, maybe we could go back to salt. That would make desalination plants more profitable, wouldn’t it? And poor folks could go down to the seashore with pots and pans to make some extra cash.
It seems to me that money is just a system for keeping track of exchanges of various sorts, so all we really need is an honest system of counting.
Yes, of course it can be replaced! It’s happened many times throughout history that the primary currency used for commerce was replaced. Can it be replaced tomorrow? Next year? In 10 years? No, not likely at all. But in 30, 50, 100 years? Possibly. And sometime over the next 100-500 years? Almost definitely.
That was a fiction. When Breton Woods was abandoned there was $55B in currency in circulation, and only about $10B in gold reserves (280m Troy ounces) behind it. Nixon abandoned the agreement because there was no way to sustain it absent throttling the American economy by reducing money in circulation or watching in a vain effort while all gold drained from US coffers anyway.
Nixon merely recognized that the wishful thinking was going to end one way or another.
Given the advanced state of world economies today there is no way to put that genie back in the bottle. The amount of wealth that is created and available in dark pools, venture capital, private equity, corporate bonds, Blockchain initiatives, private placements and the like, gold would never be able to keep up if it was the only form of “money.”
There was far more to it than that. A liberalized currency system is far better for industrial growth.
Some people have a serious problem with the words “honest” and “counting”.
Stuck with some gold - how terrible, I couldn’t think of anything worse 
That isn’t the explanation that Nixon gave the American people. He blamed it on speculators – shock, horror, was Nixon telling porkies?
The problem is that is close to literally true. There might not be anything worse than long term holding of gold. From 1985 to today, the S&P 500 is nearly 10X better than gold.
Gold and silver are only a small part of my wealth. I see it as an insurance against the inevitable collapse of the fiat Ponzi scheme. 8% pa growth since 1971 and little counterparty risk is OK by me.
That is the essential question. When the ponzi scheme collapses, and fiat goes away, will all the businesses that provide “stuff” simply cease to exist? Will they suddenly stop producing profits?
As WEB wrote years ago, would you rather have a large hunk of gold that has zero earnings and zero dividends, or a percentage ownership, and commensurate percentage share of profits, in companies that make the things we need? Even without the “ponzi” fiat stuff used to keep score?
Think about it this way. Let’s say fiat goes away and gold is used as the new medium. You can own 100 units of gold, or you can own 100 shares of company A (purchased with 100 units of gold), company A does business and earns a net 10% profit, your share of that profit each year is 10 units of gold. You can either hold your 100 units of gold in a box inside your safe, or you can hold your 100 units of gold as shares in that company.
…and a little reminder that gold’s value is not inherent, but rather is cultural, and cultures are now changing quite rapidly under the influence of technology and more… Gold is increasinly anachronistic. Sure, people (especially in the Indian sub-continent) still love jewelry made of gold, but as a store of value (other than Indian doweries) it may be slowly forgotten and displaced.
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