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Comment by giancarlostoro | Hacker News Reader

How do we even go back to a gold standard correctly? I've heard it said that it would potentially ruin the economy, so how would one even do it? Do you just start printing bigger denomination bills as silver / gold certificates? I still have a "Silver Certificate" $5 bill somewhere...

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Those who don't like something always say it'll ruin the economy. They probably did that with the 5-day week, the 40-hour week, vacations, parental leave, overtime pay, etc.

It never quite happens.

The gold standard era was full of crises

> The gold standard era was full of crises

E.g.,

* http://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archi...

America is still on the gold standard in that you can theoretically exchange an American Gold Eagle worth $2800 for $50 at a bank. What the end of the Bretton Woods is really means is that the government is unwilling to sell you an oz of gold for $50 anymore. A law that mandates the government to shoot itself in the foot is a bad law.

It's not countries can't otherwise be fiscally conservative. Germany's debt to GDP ratio is about the same as it was 20 years ago.

> What the end of the Bretton Woods is really means is that the government is unwilling to sell you an oz of gold for $50 anymore

Was there a law forcing the government to make gold coins? What it meant is that I would be able to give $2800 to the Fed and get the equivalent amount of gold at a valuation given by the number of dollars in circulation, divided by how much gold the Fed held.

> Germany's debt to GDP ratio is about the same as it was 20 years ago.

They also don't spend massively on their military.

The mechanics of it are pretty simple: Congress passes a law setting an exchange rate or causing the treasury to do so, then the treasury starts exchanging dollars for gold at that rate. I'll leave whether that's a good idea to people who actually study economics seriously; most of them seem to think it's not.

No, but there's a good reason they did this. The US would have run out of gold if they kept the gold standard. Due to the trade deficit, all the exporters would eventually drain the gold supply since gold is seen as better and the thing to be hoarded.

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