Originally Posted by
Subby
I think this gold thing might be a little more complicated than it appears.
Having a fixed amount of dollars leaves your currency, and country, vulnerable to speculators who can buy large amounts of the available currency. This is how Soros "broke the bank of england" he shorted the pound, and borrowed pounds to sell for other currencies, lowering the demand for pounds. The central bank of england had to raise interest rates to try to keep demand for pounds high. All in all it wasn't actually that profitable for Soros, he made 1 billion but had to sink 10 billion to do so. If it didn't pay off he was toast.
I'm sure some people here lived through it so would have actual memories of it, and we all know how unreliable "history" is of events like this so I'm all ears as to what it was like at the time. I'm probably in the minority but I think a hard pegged currency, gold or otherwise is a bad idea as it leaves you vulnerable to attack by international bankers and financiers. And things like that tend to get art school dropouts elected.