Gold standard

really makes me think

kropotkin pls
how will people trade things without money? A social currency for each federation?

Why do lolberts love it so much? Is it because fiat is too easily controlled by the STATE?

I'd go as far to say that states have almost no control. They have some buttons to press but ultimately they have unleashed a beast two powerful for human minds to comprehend. Which is why they made computers to gamble for them.

Life is sci fi

what's so noble about it?

There isn't enough gold in the entire world to replace all the value in circulation in the US economy without debasing the value of gold, entirely defeating the point.

The largest and most glaring problem in returning to the gold standard is that there is simply not enough gold in the world to cover the quantity of currency presently in existence. To put it another way, even if the US were somehow able to purchase the world's entire gold stocks (in itself an impossible proposition) there would still be nowhere near enough gold to cover the total value of dollars in existence. It is estimated that the total amount of gold that has been mined in the world is equal to about 142,000 metric tons. Assuming a price of $50,000 per kilogram (corresponding to around $1550 per troy ounce), that equals about $7.1 trillion: not enough to cover all circulating money and deposits in the United States, let alone the entire world. A return to the gold standard would require a massive devaluation of the US dollar, precisely the scenario that many gold bugs feel that the gold standard would prevent.

Furthermore, this calculation only applies to the US. If all the world's other countries were simultaneously trying to do the same thing then this problem would be exacerbated. In addition, if the US were to follow the policy of buying the world's gold as outlined above then a large number of the actual dollars would have ended up overseas and the US would have the metal. Presumably, the US would then have to create more dollars for internal use, which would hardly be a counter-inflationary policy.

In addition, gold has gained several industrial uses in the last century, particularly the tech industry and some medical uses, as well as traditional uses in jewelry. The ensuing hyper-deflation of a return to the gold standard would devastate the jewelry industry (no one but the filthy rich is going to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a 14k gold wedding band, never mind 24k) and the tech industry as the extensive use of gold interconnects in chip packaging would send component prices through the roof.

I feel like I've read this before. Good pasta.

The gold standard is based af

"The lack of a stable gold ruble is one of the main causes of our many economic troubles and catastrophes."
-Leon Trotsky

it has no value as a means of exchange

COMMODITY FETISHISM
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Lets say for a second we go full Rothtardian about the gold standard and believe "its the most stable currency possible."

The problem is that might be true today but one of the biggest arguments for space exploration is mining asteroids and planetoids a lot of which are filled with gold or other "precious metals." The minute we open one up and dump it on the market gold is useless as a currency and the economy is kill.

Even if you don't take that hypothetical argument seriously you can imagine something similar happening on earth, what if a hitherto unknown massive cache of gold is found and depletes the market value of the currency?

Paper currency has a lot of problems as well but essentially both are based on faith and artificial scarcity.

Gold was useful as a form of money because of its physical properties. For instance pure gold does not tarnish
economicsdiscussion.net/money/top-8-qualities-of-an-ideal-money-material/609
Now, of course, that parties you deal with intuitively recognize these properties in gold creates a sort of mutual confidence in it as a useful currency. This confidence may not be present in the currency of a new radical regime undergoing large changes, and people may revert to bartering if its inefficiency is offset by this lack of trust or other factors. Think "republic credits aren't accepted here" from star wars, or how people may not invest in a money supply being rapidly devalued by a banana republic junta printing money. This was what Trotsky was talking about and it made some form of sense in the historical context to tie currency value to the western gold-backed dollar. Instead it became a tool for fudging the numbers on production and so on, while it remained quite "notional" and not useful as a medium of exchange.
In a way these policies were instrumental in redefining reality to conform to expectation.

More like a stupid idea in general.

Im gonna start saving shit like this.

Fiat currency is DELIBERATELY a spook though. Better to spook on purpose than spook in an attempt to not spook.

Primitive barter is a myth. Read the first couple chapters of this.

most lolberts like bitcoin, the only lolberts who still whine about the gold standard are 80 year old hacks like ron paul