The Gold Standard

[Marokai Backbeat]

A fantastic idea if you intend to destroy the United States (and world) economy.

Rapidly and frequently contracting, inflexible, horrifically prone to deflation and catching people in debt traps. It's basically the worst of all worlds. Under a gold-backed currency it becomes nigh impossibly to fashion the money supply to the economy's demands in any way, and fending off speculative attacks was a frequent thorn in the economy's side way back when we actually had to deal with it. It's an unnecessary restriction to any economic growth, and countries that ditched it during the 30s had their growth rocket up almost immediately.

There's also the little matter of there not being enough gold in the world to cover the amount of money in circulation as things stand now, meaning that the reintroduction of a gold standard would cause utterly cataclysmic deflation that would make the Great Depression look like paradise.