The United States should return to the Gold Standard:

Thanks for making this debate! I'm sorry for responding so late. I have been busy with school. I also am doing this on a phone, so please pardon my spelling. Rebuttals first: 1) The Constitution The constitution was written over 200 years ago. At that time, when the global economy was much smaller then today's, it could be practical for a gold standard. However, as I will show, it is simply impractical for today's usage. Maybe then, when our economy was smaller, it was practical, but it isn't now. 2) The legality of us going off the standard. Yes, I concede that legally, Nixon should not of taken us off the standard. However, that isn't an argument for us to go back to the gold standard. Nixon did this for a reason, and it helped. 3) Yes, while it is true that gold has more intrinsic value, that is only because we believe it does. A pound of dollars is more useful then a pound of gold as you can draw on them and use them to communicate. If we all of a sudden believed that gold was useless, then it would have little worth. 4) Prosperity All I have to say is colleration is not causation. You can't prove that the economic prosperity was because of the gold standard. You also contradict yourself here. In reason 3, you state that if implemented, the gold standard would cause deflation. But here you say that, "They forget to include that deflation is a natural market fluctuation caused by competition and advancements in technology, which allows more goods to be produced at a lower price." So which is it? 5) Government Abuse So? As you said, the governments can fix the price of their money. So why can't they do it to gold? If you are worrying about the government fixing the value of money, why can't they do it to gold? 6) Bubbles. http://cdn.theatlantic.com... What is so bad about inflation? Low rates of inflation are signs of a good economy. To contrast, deflation is a sign of a weak economy. 7) Fraud Yes, prisoners wouldn't trade money. But they wouldn't trade gold either. In a place like prison, where everything is controlled, obviously they would only trade things that were actually useful. The Coinage Act was written over 200 years ago. The gold standard might of worked then, but it won't now. 8) I really don't know what this is meant to mean. 9) Natural Selection. Yes, back then, a man showing up with a bunch of gold would stop panic, but today, we simply don't have enough gold for that to me practical. Now for my argument. It is short, but concise. In short, the gold standard is a terrible idea due to inflexibility. When we pin the value of money to gold, everything depends on how much gold we have. If we have little gold, we will have to raise interest rates. Because central banks can't print more money when they need too, and our governments can't run deficits when they need too. This inflexibility can cause depressions as we can't get out of them easily if we get in them. Although the idea is to limit inflation, the link I posted above shows that isn't the case, as our economy would depend completely on the amount of gold we have. That could be disastrous. For example, say another recession occurs, and people want their gold. If we don't enough gold, our economy could be in serious trouble. So my arguments are not very long, but they are simple. Pinning our money to gold causes economic rigidness, which can slow growth and cause worsen depressions. Good luck! Sources: http://cdn.theatlantic.com... http://www.theatlantic.com... http://www.forbes.com...