You make my point, if you are correct. Paper money is a promise issued by our ever-faithful government. It used to have gold or silver behind it but now it only has the blessed assurance of that trustworthy crew in DC. It's called fiat money. Uncle Sugar says "Let it be money" and behold, it's money. In actuality it is worth nothing but the paper and ink upon it.

Hog bellies is more graphic than widgets and cumbersome than oil barrels. That is why I used the term, to make a point. Any commodity NEEDS a medium of exchange. It takes us a big step away from the barter system and more important it allows the government the POWER to control the amount of currency that's in play at any given moment. It becomes a way of LIMITING your freedom. Unka Sam uses a lot of misdirection and stick-and-carrot tactics to hold back the population and check revolt. I'm participating in my own thread drift here but ultimately, money is the subject. Worth is the subject. Gold has an INTRINSIC worth whereas currency and species has NO intrinsic value at all. We let our public servants take us off the gold standard in 1933 and the silver standard in 1964 ( both Democrat Presidents, BTW ). We were quietly eased off the last remaining ancient standard, copper, in 1982 when the copper penny was replaced by Zinc with a thin shell of copper plating over it. Zinc! Now they are trying to do away with the penny altogether. We are realistically less than 10 cents on the 1967 dollar and the penny of today would need 1000 or more to buy what that '67 dollar could. Copper is around $3 a pound ( or more ) and it is again cost prohibitive to mint the cent! Clad coinage is a good deal only because it wears so well. That is compensation for the complicated and expensive process used to make it. It has a little intrinsic value but as for the pure metals, you'd have to smelt it to obtain any pure copper or nickle.

What they really need to do is what a lot of other countries have already done ( some repeatedly ) and that is to re-value the dollar. And now would be a good time because of the 10 cents on the dollar situation. Slide the decimal one place to the left and issue all new coinage and paper.