Gold is money; everything else, including the dollar, is credit. The world periodically has to rediscover real money. From Peter C. Earle at aier.org:
From August 22 through 24th, an extended coalition of over 40 nations which has become known as BRICS+ will meet in Johannesburg, South Africa. Among the likely topics of discussion is the feasibility of setting up a jointly-owned international financial institution. It would be funded by gold deposits, issue a currency, and extend loans tied to the spot value of gold. There are substantial reasons to doubt the workability of the growing consortium’s plan. But to dismiss it summarily, whether as bad economics or rote anti-American propaganda, is to dismiss a moment five decades in the making.
Throughout the 1990s and into the early dawn of the 21st century, national governments looked down upon a world they credited themselves with creating. A Federal Reserve-engineered ‘soft landing’ in the mid-1990s buttressed the perception of monetary policy as a perfectable science. The Third Way – not free markets, but a hampered, highly regulated mixed economy – had outlasted and arguably defeated Communism. Technological innovation was vaulting beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. Space was at the forefront of science again, with the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope and construction starting on the International Space Station. Protease inhibitors, bioengineered foods, and the first hybrid vehicles arrived.
