Gee, William Jennings Bryan lives.

Money is only what people believe in, and as long as they are deluded into believing in the United States -- and its capacity to keep going -- paper money will do: it is only as good as the belief in the governments that issue it. The idea that a gold standard or any other such standard will keep governments in line is a very old fantasy.   John Kenneth Galbraith (in his very funny book on money) makes the interesting point that America was built on a series of bank collapses and bubbles, and that is what made it so entrepreneurial -- in the ruins of all the risks, new things came along that fueled the next phase. Other countries (like Canada) were much more boring, and their banks were much less prone to invest in crazy schemes, which is why Canada is so low on the global innovation and research and development tables.

yours,

Peter T.