We should return to the gold standard

Pro, you're being overconfident. I'm easily able to rebut your rebuttals.1. Inflation is good for the economyFirst of all, you're changing my argument. I'm not saying inflation is good, I'm saying moderate inflation isn't bad. Hyperinflation is very bad, but that's outside the scope of this debate. Furthermore, I admit 0% inflation would be the best, but it wouldn't be possible to keep inflation at that level. One change could start the deflationary spiral. Furthermore, you're saying the buying power of wages go down, but this isn't true. Every year unions negotiates with employers to determine how much wages should go up. The normal demand of the unions is a raise in wages that's slightly bigger than inflation. But I also looked closer at your reference to the minimum wage and found this graph: http://www.dol.gov...; width="504" height="230" />(1)I didn't expect to say this, but: you're right. The purchasing power of people earning the minimum wage went down. But before we jump to conclusions, is inflation really to blame for this? I say it isn't. The government was supposed to raise the minimum wage to compensate for inflation, but it didn't do that enough. There's probably a valid reason for that and I suspect it's related to the theory that the minimum wage creates a dead weight loss, but I didn't do research for the exact reason. 2. Deflation is bad for the economyThis is right. But I don't really understand your argumentation. You're stating that the purchasing power of the minimum wage would increase. That's very short sighted, because it ignores many, many other problems associated with deflation, which I already addressed in the previous post. I missed your rebuttal of those. 3. Recessions are good for the economyAgain you're exaggeration my argument. Recessions are bad, but allowing a bubble to lasts is VERY bad. Causing a recession is therefore the lesser of two evils. I also didn't understand your rebuttal. You're saying that because one bank was playing it safe the FED is bad? I get the impression I'm missing something. 4. Booms are bad for the economyAgain you didn't formulate my statement correctly. Booms are good as long as they are sustainable. 5. Inflation increases interestThis was my argument to show that when you have moderate inflation you aren't losing purchasing power if you have money in a bank account or another investment.But since you also agree we got off-topic, allow me to bring it closer back to the topic with this new argument against the gold standard:Returning to the gold standard is extremely difficultAt the moment the US treasury holds about 260 million troy ounces of gold reserve. At the market price of gold, about $1,146 an ounce (2) that would equal about $298 billion in gold. However M1 is in august 2015 about $3,012 billion (3). In order to peg the dollar to gold, the United States would either have to vastly increase its gold holdings, set the dollar price of gold at about $11,600 an ounce, or suffer a massive deflation and contraction in the money supply (or some combination of the three). (4)Unless pro has a solid plan on how we're going back to the gold standard, he is empty handed.Sources1) http://www.dol.gov...2) http://goldprice.org...3) http://www.federalreserve.gov...4) http://gold-standard.procon.org...