[ubernostrum]

Pretty much every useful currency these days is "backed" by absolutely not one single atom of metal.

Which, it turns out, works just fine -- the belief that gold has value is roughly as magical as the belief that saying some words can turn wine into blood (and a prime sign of religious dogma in both cases).

[wnight]

The problem is that in ditching gold they went straight to faith-based currency. Even if gold was ugly and useless it'd still be a better base for currency than nothing because of its scarcity. It's too easy to create more money. We don't even print it anymore.