[DesertRhino]

Exactly. You have to lose the assumption that gold is currently “X” per ounce and there are “Y” dollars (or whatever) therefore we need Z ounces of gold. It isn’t about you having a coin in your pocket.

It is simply saying a unit of currency is worth a specified amount of gold. It could be a very small amount. The point is that a government could never create more money without holding the commensurate amount of gold. A nice inflation and welfare/warfare state preventer.

[philman_36]

It could be a very small amount.

Why, then, wouldn't an actual coin itself work instead of a paper instrument (currency)?

[philman_36]

The point is that a government could never create more money without holding the commensurate amount of gold.

Have you conflated currency with money?
...a government could never create more gold backed currency without holding the commensurate amount of gold
A government need not concern itself with reserves if it uses currency instead of actual coins.

Actual money, Constitutional money, IS gold and silver, nothing else. Coinage Act of April 2, 1792

SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That the proportional value of gold to silver in all coins which shall by law be current as money within the United States, shall be as fifteen to one, according to quantity in weight, of pure gold or pure silver; that is to say, every fifteen pounds weight of pure silver shall be of equal value in all payments, with one pound weight of pure gold, and so in proportion as to any greater or less quantities of the respective medals. Paper instruments, even when backed by gold, is NOT money.

We have a system, we just need to get back to it and get out of the debt slavery we are in.

What is it about people having actual possession of gold and silver coins that horrifies the current day power brokers in this world so much?

That's a question we should all ask ourselves.

[cgbg]

.Gov managed to spend a fortune of money they did not have in WWII.

Gold did not stop them.

History is your friend.

[discostu]

No. You have to lose ALL OF IT. Forget the gold. Gold backing is a fiction anyway. The real determination of money is the Big Mac Index. You want to know what money, any money, anywhere, any time, is worth. Look it up on the Big Mac Index. McDonald’s puts a lot of work into making sure a Big Mac costs a certain amount of the average labor of a person in the region.

And you’ll never prevent inflation or the welfare state. We were gold backed during the depression. It prevent $#%^ then and wouldn’t now.