How would it be possible to return to a gold standard monetary system?

Question

BEESTING...Thank you so much...I am pretty ignorant about this subject and needed some info...Is it true that the Fed is a private bank? and ...if we tried to get out from under them...would they more than likely call in the debt that we have incurred?

Answer 1

The U. S. Treasury claims to have about 8,130 tons of Gold in storage.

http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/2007109152793174.htm

However, from what I've read the Gold has not been officially audited since 1953.

It would take some adjustment but New Hampshire already has a state plan awaiting state legislation:

http://www.goldmoneybill.org/

Gold available:

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/zurbuchen011506.html

Ron Paul has written several books on this subject, & I'm lucky enough to own one of them.

There are several theories on exactly how to do it but, this company already has a Gold/Silver type of working monetary system:

http://www.goldmoney.com/

Hope this helps a little.
Thank you for the question!
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[edit] The myth about not enough Gold!
From the Ron Paul Money Book Page 213:
{Ron Paul} I find it amazing that economists can make statements like this, for it is an elementary principle of economics that if one raises the price of a commodity, one will always have enough of that commodity. What we saw in the {present & 1980} runup of Gold prices is in fact the raising in the price of Gold to match the depreciation of the dollar that has occured, and is still occurring.

[edit # 2.] This is a very long read on the Fed.
Ron Paul has an audio on Gold that is interesting:

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm

Warm Welcome To The World Of Gold Hearts!.....SMILE!

[edit # 3.]
There is a law of economics called Greshems law, which simply means if people start to use money that is more valuable than Federal Reserve notes, the less valuable money, FRN's, will eventually disappear.

Google-The Greenback or Continental dollar. Both unbacked currencies became worthless, as the people preferred to use Gold or Gold backed money.

Answer 2

No, I wanted to explain it all myself but its so convenient when its already written for me, so here you go: The 1913 Federal Reserve Act explicitly tied monetary policy to the gold standard and the real bills doctrine. The gold standard, of course, required governments to redeem their currency on demand in gold, essentially fixing its values not only against the precious metal but also against the currencies of all other gold standard countries. The real bills doctrine limited central bank lending to the purchase of real bills—loans secured by goods—effectively tying the issue of money to the value of goods moving through the economy. Ideally, this system would be self-regulating. The gold standard would keep international payments in balance, and the real bills doctrine would prevent the central bank from financing speculative activity while guaranteeing credit for the production and distribution of goods. The First World War wrecked the assumptions on which the Federal Reserve Act rested. The international gold standard collapsed. At home, the Federal Reserve purchased huge quantities of Treasury obligations to help the government finance the war, so that, with the return of peace, real bills constituted only a small part of its portfolio. Much of Meltzer’s history revolves around the attempts by the Fed’s leaders to revive the gold standard and devise something analogous to the real bills doctrine to guide domestic policy. Both efforts proved disastrous. Unlike many other observers, Meltzer does not consider the gold standard inherently flawed. It did, however, require symmetrical application—that is, countries with a surplus of gold must expand their currency, even as those in deficit must deflate. Such had been the case before 1914, but in the 1920s, central banks, led by the Federal Reserve, “sterilized” inflows of gold to prevent inflation. This forced deficit countries to make the entire adjustment to any payments imbalance by deflating, giving the gold standard a relentlessly deflationary bias that was ultimately economically and politically unsustainable. To make a bad situation worse, the Fed ignored the practice of other central banks before 1914, outlined by Bagehot, of ignoring the gold standard during domestic financial crises and supplying credit as needed to guarantee solvency. During 1931 and 1932, when gold reserves were falling and the American financial system was collapsing, the Fed kept credit scarce, intensifying the banking crisis and making the Depression worse. Even after 1933, when President Roosevelt abandoned gold, Fed officials hoped to restore the gold standard, but the disastrous experience of the 1920s and early 1930s meant that this project enjoyed little outside support.

Answer 3

It is estimated that mankind has mined 110,000 tonnes of Gold in human history.

At todays street values, that's about 2 trillion dollars.

Considering the US Federal Budget itself is more than 2 trillion dollars, it would be impossible to go back to the gold standard.

For the poster who said we could use other metals also.

There is even less silver in the world than there is gold, and alot less Platinum.

We could just as well, say our money is backed by the special paper that it is printed on.

And yes, we could value gold at a price so high, that it could back our money, that would be about $10,000 an oz, just for the US economy.

If other countries economies, did the same, Gold could conceivably have a value of a $1,000,000.00 an oz.

Ya think, that the people invested in Gold, are the ones, trying to push this policy ??

Just imagine, your High School graduation ring, might be worth $500,000.00

Answer 4

Pass a constitutional amendment repealing the 13th amendment, abolishing the Federal Reserve, and returning us to the money system set forth by the constitution. Remember, the great depression didn't happen until after we had the Federal Reserve. Every dollar in circulation would then be backed by an amount of gold at Ft. Knox, and inflation would stop.

Answer 5

There might not be enough gold but other metals can be used in combination like platinum and silver to mention a few. The excuse that there is not enough gold is pure fear mongering BS.

Answer 6

We don't have enough gold to back all of the money we use. So, in order to get back to the gold standard, a lot of people would have to give up a bunch of their money. Sound like something you want to do?

Answer 7

Governments should be deprived of their monopoly of the currency-issuing power. The private citizens of every country should be allowed, by mutual agreement, to do business with each other in the currency of any country. In addition, they should be allowed to mint privately gold or silver coins and to do business with each other in such coins... Still further, private institutions should be allowed to issue notes payable in such metals. But these should be only gold or silver certificates, redeemable on demand in the respective quantities of the metals specified. The issuers should be required to hold at all times the full amount in metal of the notes they have issued, as a warehouse owner is required to hold at all times everything against which he has issued an outstanding warehouse receipt, on penalty of being prosecuted for fraud. And the courts should enforce all contracts made in good faith in such private currencies.

Hazlitt's proposal is at once less ambitious in its aims but more realistic in its likely results than the proposal put forth by Timberlake. Thus, Hazlitt does not propose the immediate abolition of the Federal Reserve system or the return of the government gold hoard to private hands. Instead, recognizing that a private gold standard would not emerge immediately and automatically alongside the well entrenched fiat-dollar standard, Hazlitt believes that, given the legal framework he has set out, a private, 100 percent gold standard would slowly but surely evolve in step with the inevitable inflationary destruction of the fiat dollar. According to Hazlitt:

As the rate of inflation increased, or became more uncertain, Americans would tend increasingly to make long-term contracts payable in gold. This is because sellers and lenders would become increasingly reluctant to make long-term contracts payable in paper dollars or in irredeemable money-units of any other kind.

This preference for making long-term contracts in gold would apply particularly to international contracts. The buyer or debtor would then either have to keep a certain amount of gold in reserve, or make a forward contract to buy gold, or depend on buying gold in the open spot market with his paper money on the date that his contract fell due. In time, if inflation continued, even current transactions would increasingly be made in gold.

Thus, there would grow up, side by side with fiat paper money, a private domestic and international gold standard. Each country that permitted this would then be on a dual monetary system, with a daily changing market relation between the two monies. And there would be a private gold system ready to take over completely on the very day that the government's paper money became absolutely worthless -- as it did in Germany in November, 1923, and in scores of other countries at various times.

As described by Hazlitt, the process of transition to a private gold standard amidst the hyperinflationary breakdown of the fiat currency is certainly realistic enough. Moreover, it must be admitted that the economy would suffer much less devastation from the consequences of hyperinflation if, upon the demise of the primary fiat-money standard, people did not have to resort to barter but were able to take advantage of an already developing commodity-money standard. Still, Hazlitt's plan leaves one naturally wondering why meaningful monetary reform must await the catastrophe of a hyperinflation, while the economy continues in the throes of an ever worsening stagflation.

In fact, Hazlitt himself expects that the implementation of his proposal will serve to avert a hyperinflationary Armageddon by constraining the government to surrender its fiatmoney monopoly and restore a genuine gold standard. Unfortunately, Hazlitt is not very clear on exactly how this would come to pass. He writes:

I should perhaps make one point clear. I do not expect that allowing citizens to do business in the currencies of foreign nations or in private gold coins will in the long run in most countries mean that these citizens will do most of their business in these foreign or private currencies. I am assuming that practically all governments will continue to issue an official currency and that, when they have ceased inflating, they will issue their own gold coins and certificates. And I assume that most of their citizens will then use their own governments' money and coins. But this is because I expect that once freedom of choice in currencies is permitted, each government will begin to reform its own monetary practices. What will count is not only the actual competition of foreign money or private coins, but the ever-present possibility of the competition of foreign or private money.

In this passage, Hazlitt alludes to the potential competition from a private gold standard as the key factor which will induce government to abandon its inflationary ways and embrace the gold standard. However, this contradicts his earlier analysis of the transition from a hyperinflated fiat money to a free-market gold money. As Hazlitt points out, it is only after hyperinflation is well under way that the public will even contemplate incurring the substantial costs of completely abandoning the existing medium of exchange in current transactions as well as credit transactions. In short, inflation will have to progress a long way before the parallel gold standard, as conceived in Hazlitt's plan, presents serious competition to the government fiat money. In the meanwhile, the economy will still be left to suffer the ravages of a hyperinflation. The road to long-term monetary stability leads ultimately to the complete abolition of the government monopoly of issuing money and, concomitantly, to the return of the function of supplying money to the free market. The most crucial and difficult step along this road -- though certainly neither the first nor the last -- involves reconstituting the dollar, the existing fiat money, as a commodity money. This would be done by restoring it to its original status as a legally redeemable claim to a fixed weight of the former money-commodity, gold. Only if and when this step is taken is there hope of ever achieving the ultimate aim of a wholly "denationalized" money whose supply and value are at long last free from the arbitrary manipulations of a nonmarket monopolist.

Answer 8

It wouldn't. Simple reason: our economy, our annual production, exceeds all the gold in the entire world.

Answer 9

yeah... I don't think we have, or can get, nearly enough gold...

our economy is like thousands of times larger than it was back then...

Answer 10

Mine the asteroids.