[cft]

My statement was that the currency (in this example, USD) until 1971 has always been at least partially backed up by something beyond control of any single government (gold). That was the whole reason of Nixon's speech and abolishing gold convertibility on August 15, 1971 [1]. This regime existed since at least Ancient Greece, but probably longer. I have no empirical reason to believe that the currency system of last 50 years is more stable than the one that existed for 2000+ years ( I think substantially longer).

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRzr1QU6K1o

[Guvante]

You are ignoring my point because it wasn't what you wanted to say. "At least partially backed up by" is a meaningless statement. Certainly everyone agrees that US wasn't holding onto the amount of USD that existed as gold. So what percentage was it? Was that percentage stable?

The answer to both of those questions was no. The actual amount of currency in circulation (including balance sheets) was certainly well in excess of what the US was holding in reserve.

You could say that by offering gold at a rate you fix the value of the currency but I already covered how that is nuanced.

The reality of course is the reason we had trades for reserves and reserve requirements were to provide faith from consumers that the currency was worth something. I don't think anyone can claim that USD isn't worth anything today.

[notch656a]

Switzerland's currency was linked to gold all the way up to like '99