[Tradewinds]

Here is some interesting history about gold and the currency.

Franklin Roosevelt became president on Mar. 4, 1933. The Great Depression was going on at the time. Many people panicked and took their gold and money out of the banks, causing the banks to have insufficient deposits. People were also hoarding gold out of fear. The gold supply at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was getting dangerously low, and the nation was looking at an insolvency crisis. So Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102 on Apr. 5, prohibiting the hoarding of gold. It actually forced citizens to hand over their gold coins for paper currency.

double-eagle-gold-coins-mystery-businessweek: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

[zdo]

"Gold is money, Everything else is credit" J.P. Morgan

[zdo]

Dear Ben, Please Print Us More Money

[Tradewinds]

Let's imagine that the U.S.A. wanted to back the currency with gold. Let's use M2 money supply to estimate how much money is actually in circulation. M1 doesn't include bank reserves. M2 is the standard used to estimate how much money is actually in circulation.

Money supply - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

M2 for July 2011 was 9313.6 billion dollars.

FRB: H.6 Release--Money Stock and Debt Measures--August 25, 2011

But here is something more interesting: The total U.S. debt is 54 trillion dollars.

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

A trillion has 12 zeros behind it.

trillion - Definition of trillion at YourDictionary.com

So just the U.S. debt alone is bigger than the entire M2 money supply. So what should we base the needed gold reserve on? M2 money supply? The total U.S. debt? The total U.S. debt plus the M2 money supply? How much physical gold should there be in reserves? Let's use a really, really small number. Let's say, 20% percent of M2 money supply. That's about 1,863 billion dollars.

Okay, so we need 1,863 billion dollars worth of gold. How are we going to pay for that gold? Let's see, we could draft U.S. citizens to work in the gold mines for long enough to cover their share of the gold reserves. Hey, that's a great idea. I've just solved the problem of how to acquire all that gold. Everyone reading this, please phone and/or write your local, county and national political representatives and tell them that you want to be drafted to work in the gold mines to contribute your share to the gold reserve.

Or we could just buy the gold. Oh wait! Just a second. How are we going to buy the gold? Where is the money coming from? Okay, let's see. We could raise taxes by 1,863 billion dollars. That will bring in the revenues to buy the gold. Okay, this is a great idea. Everyone reading this, please phone and/or write you political representatives and let them know that you want your taxes to go up by 1,863 billion dollars. Okay, problem solved.