Gold's price has gone from over $600 in the 80's, to less than $300 in the 90's back up to over $600 now. How again would this remove inflation & deflation? (The US dollar inflated between those two periods, so if gold is a counterweigh, then gold prices should have increased to match.)
The Free Competition in Currency Act is not about returning to the gold standard. It is about putting some more competition into the currency market with the expected result that good currency will drive out the bad. By not allowing competing currencies people are forced to do business with dollars backed by nothing but the full faith and credit of the US. (Which, ain't what it used to be) Ideally, the Dollar would be the good currency and be made better by the competition.
What happens if a huge amount of gold reserves are found? Everyone's money deflates.
True. But what are the odds of a 5,000,000 kilo gold asteroid falling into Lake Michigan or the sudden invention of a machine that cheaply transmutes aluminum into gold compared to the Fed cranking out another few trillion of paper money?
You do also know that we have fewer recessions than we did while in the gold standard, right?
Fewer per period of time or just fewer? We haven't been off the gold standard that long and we've had a few whoppers. But, once again, the Free Competition In Currency Act isn't about returning to a gold standard.
And that there is nothing preventing you from accepting gold as payment? See e-gold.com & their payments system.
Nothing except the Secret Service
If you are going to claim that a government agency is defrauding you, then there needs to be evidence: the inflation rate in the US has been less than 5% for almost all of the last decade, and much of that time it has been less than 2%. And you do know that inflationary bubbles aren't the only cause of asset bubbles or the only cause of recession?
Less than 5% inflation is HUGE. Over your lifetime it is crippling to anyone who saves money. Small percentages compounded over decades grow to large percentages very quickly.
A random metal is no more/less intrinsically valuable than random pieces of specially printed paper or of little black pixels in the shape of numbers on my bank's website.
Never said it was. Frankly, from an investing point of view I think gold is a terrible investment, little better than hiding a stack of dollars in a shoebox. However, the dollar could be made better. Which would benefit many of us.
Peter
