Why Its Pointless To Argue With Global Warming Believers 2099

Why shouldn't it? Once again, the gold standard is actually *more* contrived than the current situation.

Here's an neat illustration. buttume the entire global economy was destroyed, and there are only 15 people left on the planet. What happens to the value of your gold-backed currency? It vanishes. Why? It's still worth the same amount of gold. But, see, it wasn't *really* backed by gold. It was backed by the system which produced the goods you wanted. And when that system doesn't exist anymore, it's worthless.

Paper money just makes this more explicit, and eliminates some silly problems that crop up with gold-backed currency, like the fact that the value of your money is influenced by the value of some arbitrary commodity which is mostly worth something because people like shiny objects.

Consumer price index.

Inflation of the USD is fairly well controlled. To the extent that it's not, it's most a result of mbuttive borrowing -- which would be just as much of a problem with gold-backed currency. It wouldn't particularly matter if the federal government had vaults full of enough gold to back up every dollar, if they owed it all to China and Japan, now would it?

If you can't find investments that stay ahead of inflation, you're an idiot.

Once again, looking at inflation-adjusted income reveals that Americans make more money today in real terms than they did 30 years ago. All of your kooky ranting about gold-backed currency doesn't change that.

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-- "Those who enter the country illegally violate the law." -- George W. Bush in Tucson, Ariz., Nov. 28, 2005