Officially, the gold standard is regarded as superstitious nonsense, especially by academics. The fact that it worked very well for centuries, produced results that nobody seems able to achieve today, and – unlike any other “superstition” in the history of human civilization – has been shared by the ancients and moderns, Chinese, Romans, Persians and Aztecs, apparently means little to these people. But unofficially, gold was not only the basis of the global monetary system for centuries until the breakup of Bretton Woods in 1971, it has been – in rough form – the basis of the global monetary system for most of the ... (full story)