What you are essentially telling us is that we should abandon a free market in currencies, and instead fix the prices by fiat.
Strawman. Non sequitur. I believe that a yard should be fixed/defined as three feet. Would you describe that as my saying that I do not favor a free market in distances, and instead want to fix the relationship by fiat.
[Russia and South Africa] have enough gold in the ground to jack the price around all they want.
Above ground “we” have 25% of the world supply; Russia has 1%; South Africa a fraction of 1%. But what does this matter? By what reasoning do you conclude that defining a currency honestly as representing a specific quantity of a commodity puts an economy at the mercy of another country that has a below ground supply of that commodity?
You want Vladimir Putin setting the rate at which our economy can expand? (I know you don't believe you're doing that by pegging currencies to gold, but again, that's only because you don't understand how any of this really works).
Would you explain how it works?
You pretend that gold just "is," and there isn't anybody mucking around with its supply.
No such pretension is required for my desire for honest money.
Plus you'd take the currency-trading market out of the system, which is what keeps the current system honest.
Honest money does not require a currency trading market. In fact, the mere existence of a currency trading market is prima facie proof that the money isn’t honest.
Pick any one of these topics so we can have an intellectual discussion about it.