So you are saying that if you took all the paper and electronic dollars in the world, you could trade them for gold at $1876/oz? Not buying that at all. There is far too much cash for that.
1. If we were to implement the gold standard today with the goal of keeping the dollar stable relative to gold, we should set the price at $1,797 / oz. gold. (If we set the exchange rate at $8,000 / oz. gold as you suggest, people -- including me -- would tender our gold to the federal reserve in exchange for $8,000. The federal reserve would have to print a lot of money -- think: inflation -- to do that, but the government would get a lot of gold, too.)It blows my mind that you really seem to believe that the real price of gold is 4-5x what the free market says. How did you get smarter than the other 5 billion independently acting actors in the global economy. Trust me, I'm a buyer of gold even at $1,797 / oz. I believe the free market price is really $1,797 / oz. and I'm not getting a special deal, but I also believe that the government will continue printing and supplying more dollars to the economy than it can absorb and that the market clearing price will be more than $1,797 next year.2. Running a gold standard isn't tough. Supply liquidity when people are tendering gold -- reduce liquidity when people are withdrawing gold. I could do that job with an Excel spreadsheet and open market operations and be home by noon every day. Unfortunately, there's no political will to have a gold standard. Keynesians believe that some inflation is good.