History demonstrates that the classical gold standard, properly employed, has the best track record of all in keeping money valuable over time, generating prosperity, including vibrant job creation — stronger growth, shorter and shallower recessions. There is a common sense reason that “the gold standard” is synonymous for “the best.”
The U.S. Constitution gives only the Congress the power: “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.” You should be able to go to any bank and get a gold coin for your dollars, or dollars for your gold coin — the same amount, and worth the same amount, next week, year, or decade as today.
The constitutional power given to Congress to fix the standards of weights and measures allows us to rely on the fact that an inch always will be the same length and an ounce always will have the same weight. Thus, we don’t have to throw out our yardsticks or scales each year. The gold standard allows us to be certain that a dollar today will be worth the same as a dollar in the future. This continued worth can span as long as 100 years as
Currently, under the “scrip standard” of paper money, the dollar has lost about 80% of its buying power since President Nixon removed the United States from the last vestiges of the gold standard. It takes over $5 today to buy what $1 bought in 1971! This is very discouraging to working Americans who are trying to save for their retirement or for their children’s education.
Now America and the world are struggling to emerge from The Great Recession. Joblessness and underemployment remain much too high.
There is a lot of evidence that of the many reforms which may lead to the restoration of vibrant prosperity implementing the gold standard will be the most effective. Its effectiveness has been demonstrated many times in history in a pragmatic, not romantic, way. The gold standard is not perfect. It is merely the best, the most moral, the most constitutional, and the most conducive to long term prosperity. However it must be implemented at the right price with associated legal and fiscal reforms.
The proponents of this site TheGoldStandardNow.org together have spent many decades studying the various monetary policies that have been tried, the claims made for them and the evidence about how they work in practice. This site makes that research, and much more besides, available to you, without charge, to allow you to inform yourself about this crucially important issue.