Why are people not focusing on the main issues with the economy?

A gold standard is just a form of government currency. It is not intended to "support" global commerce but to give governments the ability to emit a viable form of money that cannot be debauched and manipulated by central planners. What the global economy requires is a system of competing currencies. That way, markets can price and allocate money on the basis of supply and demand.

 

There apparently needs to be some clarification.

"Money" is a common commodity used in the barter system to facilitate commerce. Technically it can be any commodity so long as it is accepted as a medium of exchange. Gold and silver, for numerous reasons, are the predominate forms of "money" historically.

"Lawful money" is money (i.e. a commodity) that is controlled by the government and is "legal tender" for use within the country.

Under the US Constitution that Congress is delegated with the responsibility to "coin money" which is the manufacture of "legal tender" coins from "money" and the "money" in the has always been gold and silver in the United States. The Congress cannot "create" money because it cannot create the gold or silver but it can "coin" that money which is what Article 1 Section 8 delegates Congress to do. Once "coined" by the US Mint the "money" becomes lawful "legal tender" money which is good for all debts public and private. Americans can still used "money" for transactions such as gold dust or nuggets (which was used in the California gold rush) but they are not required to accept it by law.

Regulating the "value thereof" of money is not related to it's purchasing power but instead it's about regulating the value of different types of "money" predominately as it relates to the exchange value between gold and silver. That has nothing to do with the exchange rate of gold or silver related to other commodities but instead the exchange rate between gold and silver. Today the exchange rate is about 50:1 for an ounce of silver to an ounce of gold. The Gold Bullion Coin Act of 1985 is relatively accurate in assigning a 50:1 relationship between a "Silver Eagle Dollar" and a "$50 American Gold Eagle" coin. That is "regulating the value thereof" which Congress is directed to do.

Legal Tender "currency" as established in the Supreme Court decision of Julliard v Greenman are promissory notes reflecting the borrowing of "lawful money" by the United States government. They are not money but promise money and they are "legal tender" because, at some point in the future, the US government has promised to redeem these notes in "lawful money" and that is reflected in statutory law under Title 12.

 

Our federal Congress is delegated the power to fix the Standard of Money in our republic via simple fiat.

 

Thank you! At least someone sees the flaw in the argument.

I've nothing against competing currencies though, and that is probably how a gold currency could be used.

 

The value of gold adjusts as it needs to. There's no 'shortage' of gold in the world.

 

And yet gold has intrinsic and historical value. It is valuable whether governments say it is or not; it doesn't rely on fiat (a bull(*)(*)(*)(*) term if I ever heard one). It's the reason China has been buying up gold on the world market and pushing for the overthrow of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. And gold certainly has the ability to do it, because when the fiat illusion meets with a commodity of intrinsic value, it will break apart like ocean waves on a rock.

 

Why are our elected representatives so fiscally irresponsible in modern times as to not engender massive surpluses to the federal treasury, simply because it only takes money to make money under any form of Capitalism; especially with a printing press of the People at our disposal?

 

This is absolutely true. The value of gold is it's relationship as a commodity relative to other commodities and is determined by the free market.

Since 1950 the world's supply of gold has doubled and yet it's value related to other commodities has remained relatively constant to other commodities because world production of commodities has also increased substantially. If additional demand for gold goes up then gold will increase in value and if demand for gold goes down it will reduce in value related to other commodities. The value of gold is specifically related to commodities and is unrelated to world fiat currencies that have consistantly lost "value" related to commodities because "fiate currency" has no intrinsic value because it is not a commodity and it is misreprestented as being "money" when it is not money because all "money" is a commodity. Money (e.g. gold and silver) has intrinsic value in a free market because it is a commodity that has a trading value relative to other commodities based upon supply and demand.

Of note, historically over time all fiat currencies have failed but "money" which is a commodity has never failed. We know that Federal Reserve notes, if not redeemed in lawful money by the Federal Reserve, will eventually fail. The only question is when, not if, it will fail.

 

But with the world supply of specie being more or less constant, a money supply that inherently cannot grow means there can be no economic growth.

That's why they dumped specie in the first place.

 

As I've noted the world's gold supply has doubled since 1950. It is not a constant but instead is an every increasing amount that has basically maintained pace with the increases in the production of other commodities over time. That is why, when we look at something like real estate, it has maintained roughly an equivalent value when compared to gold. A residential home that would have sold for $6000 in gold coins in 1950 would still sell for about $6000 in American Gold Eagles today. The difference today is that the same home is worth about $200,000 in discounted Federal Reserve notes but it's still only worth $6000 in American Eagle coins which are lawful money in the United States.

I've done comparisons in the past which equated the number of eggs and loaves of bread to an ounce of gold going back 100 years and, when we account for the differences in production, the number of eggs or loaves of bread today still costs about the same in "gold" over that 100 year time period.

 

uh actually that's why it would be a DEflationary currency. You see how INflationary currency has worked out so far, right?