money standard

[MaC]

I say silver.  We have a much more flexible economy than we did in the early 1900s.  We need a precious metal that's also more malleable, excuse the pun.  I hope eventually we could go to gold when all works well and the economy stabilizes a bit, but we need to back it with something.  The road we're going now by backing the dollar with nothing is the road to continued recession, and likely depression.

[Richard]

Gold, silver, platinum, and other metals.

[A18]

Continue to back with nothing.

[senatortombstone]

Use our bare-backed money to buy gold from othe countries and then use that gold to back our money!

[David S]

I vote for gold over silver because its price has been more stable than silver over the last 30 years, and because it is more resistant to oxidation  than silver.

Using more than one metal is not a good idea because market forces will cause one metal to become more valuable than the other and people will start melting it down for its commodity value. (Gresham's law- bad money drives good money out of circulation.)

Having a precious metal backed currency would probably stop the chronic inflation we've had over the past 70 years. But the transition might create quite a shock to the economy, so I would suggest that the issue be carefully studied by a commission of economists first.

[Redefeatbush04]

I don't know enough about the issue to say either way. Can someone give me a simple list of the + and - of both gold and silver please.

[Keystone Phil]

I don't know enough about the issue to say either way. Can someone give me a simple list of the + and - of both gold and silver please.

Someone needs to grow up with the username.

[Keystone Phil]

I don't know enough about the issue to say either way. Can someone give me a simple list of the + and - of both gold and silver please.

Someone needs to grow up with the username.

Someone needs to grow up and not take everything so seriously

The nonsense has to stop.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Our consumption-based economy is based upon having a small but predictable level of inflation to act as a spur to consumption.  The golden period of the gold standard, the late 19th century, corresponded with significant new discoveries of gold and new methods of gold extraction that inflated the money supply.  Gold mining today cannot supply sufficient gold to provide the needed level of money supply growth.  Going to the gold standard would give us all of the adverse effects of deflation without any appreciable benefit over the reasonably well fiat currency we enjoy.