I have a $500 bet with my gold-standard-espousing friend Matt that not one major industrial country will go to the gold standard. My time frame was originally in the next 10 years (or ever), but that's no fun for betting, so we've reduced it to 5 years, ending on April 13, 2013.
So for the past year, Matt has been sending me occasional links to articles like this one about Zimbabwe whenever there is any word uttered by a government about possibly backing a country's currency with gold.
Come on, Zimbabwe? Really? The country with 231 million percent inflation? Shit, if you were to propose backing Zimbabwe's currency with seashells, it would be more than reasonable.
I heard today that the EURO is backed PARTIALLY by a Gold Standard.
ReplyDeleteAnon,
ReplyDeleteNo. The European Central Bank keeps its currency reserves in many different denominations of foreign currency. Of that basket, there IS some gold, but it's not a "gold standard", ie, that the ECB has a commitment that the currency is readily convertible to gold on demand.