Sound Money is better than Fiat Money for the average citizen.

I don't see how you can contrast 16th century Spain and modern Zimbabwe. In both scenarios the countries inflated their currency, either by printing or mining, as a way to pay off debts. In the case of Zimbabwe, the main country harmed by massive inflation was Zimbabwe. Whereas Spain's mining inflated the currencies of every nation backed by gold. At the end of the day, the ruination of nation states is based on decisions other than simply the legal medium of exchange. Even if the value of the US dollar has dropped 95% since 1913, the purchasing power and quality of life of the average citizen has increased well beyond that. According to the logic and calculations of your source Mr. Woods, the dollar gained value during the Great Depression. I am sure we can all agree the Great Depression had a net negative impact on the average citizen of the United States. Modern fiat currency is more stable because governments have more control over it. it cannot be found in the ground and the rate at which money enters and leaves circulation can be regulated. In a commodity backed currency, it is possible to manipulate prices by hoarding. In a fiat currency, hoarding is dangerous because the government could always just print more money. This means you have to continuously spend your money thereby keeping the currency circulating, which is beneficial to growth and the average citizen. With a commodity backed currency you run the risk of population growth exceeding growth of the money supply. With less money to go around you would experience deflation. To avoid deflation a nation would devalue existing gold certificates by printing more of them. Inflation of a currency is not inherently bad for average citizens. For example, inflation can be beneficial to workers and debtors. As average pay increases, companies can reward productive workers with raises and punish unproductive workers by not giving them raises. It is unfavorable for the employer to cut a worker's wages and doing so would be harmful to an average citizen who bases the rest of their decisions around a certain fixed income. Similarly, as the productive worker's wage rises, they can use that money to pay down debts. With inflation, the principal of the debt loses value. If a worker's wage is increased beyond the rate of inflation, debt can get paid off even faster. If not used to pay down debts, additional money can be used to buy additional goods or services they wouldn't otherwise have. This is more significant in the case of citizens living paycheck to paycheck without any savings or investments to speak of. A huge asteroid of solid gold falling from the sky would probably be more devastating by its physical impact, than by the devaluation of gold-backed currency. ;) You simply cannot predict what technologies or discoveries would lead to the devaluation of a commodity. Aluminum went from being one of the most expensive and rare metals to dirt cheap and abundant in less than 20 years.[1] I would not be surprised if Mr. Musk or others are successful in their asteroid mining endeavors which kick-starts the next gold rush in less than 100 years. We might even discover a process to make synthetic gold cost-effectively as has been done with diamonds. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org...