Gold Standard

Nickel is a base metal the government used to replace silver. Since then, the government has inflated so much that even nickel is too valuable for US coinage.

The gold standard supposed a limit to the fiscal voracity of governments, and suspending it unleashed the perverse proclivity of the states toward indebtedness and to pass the current imbalances on to future generations.

Nixon’s closing the gold window should be seen as the end of the last remnant of the gold standard, not some kind of market failure. Governments controlled most of the gold and set its price.

Reinstating the mark, a peaceful act by a sovereign country, would create a cascade of monetary reform throughout the world. Europe's trading partners would find the cost of necessary imports rising in terms of their local currencies, forcing them to adopt fiscal and monetary responsibility.