The value of those shoes can't be destroyed by the government printing presses.

Yes, but their illiquidity makes them a poor medium of trade.

I don't understand your comment implying parent has no economic understanding. It sounds like his understanding of economics is what is driving his issue with paper currency.

I'm sure you're right, on both counts.

The OP is flat-out wrong regarding the constitution. The word "gold" appears exactly once, prohibiting the states from coining their own money. It's left to congress to "coin money and regulate the value thereof", full stop. Simple words, not scare tactics.

It's impossible to explain even a tiny part of one Econ 101 lecture in a /. comment. Reference material isn't hard to find for anyone interested enough to want to learn.

The value of money, like anything else, is subject to supply and demand. As the economy grows — through population and productivity — the money supply has to growth with it. If it doesn't, the value of money increases, which by definition is deflation. (Even gold bugs have to agree with that proposition because they're always the ones talking about the opposite: "debasing" the money i.e. inflation.)

Deflation is a whole subject its own. The basic problem is that banking stops because interest rates are (again, by definition) negative, and no one will deposit money in an account that pays negative rates. It also means your mortgage payments effectively increase, because the bank has the money and you're selling your crops (or earning your wage) at ever-decreasing rates.

The basic problem with the so-called gold standard is that there's only so much gold. The gold supply can't grow with the economy, forcing deflation and its attendant deleterious effects. That effect is more pronounced the faster the economy grows. In the 19th century the US economy experienced high growth — through both immigration and productivity growth as a function of the Industrial Revolution — and in fact suffered four depressions (culminating of course in the Great Depression early in the 20th). These were all in part attributable to the inability (and lack of understanding for the need) to increase the money supply.

But don't take my word for it. We haven't had a depression since 1937. Living standards have improved, measurably, in many ways. The system has flaws, sure, but it works. By contrast, no country has a gold standard today. That doesn't mean it's untested; it was tested by many countries over many years, including by the US. And was found not to work! A simple, obvious, plain fact the gold bugs choose to ignore.

If you want to learn about databases, install mysql with about ten clicks, and read the mysql documention. It's not a puzzle, it's just a process.

That's terrible advice. Relational databases are neither puzzle nor process, they're math and logic. Unlike practically anything else in software, they have a scientific underpinning. Learn the theory. Then apply it.

If you get a copy of MySQL or Microsoft Access and putz with it, You'll sooner or later find your way around, sure enough. But what will you know? How to use version Y of product X. Great. Not only will your knowledge be obsolete in a year, but it's inapplicable everything else. And you'll be whistling in the dark, because you'll know how but not why.

A man that knows how to do something will always have a job. The man who knows why will always be his boss.

So. Start with Chris Date's introduction to databases. Just read it. Then get yourself some software and a problem to solve. Don't make something up; find a friend or nonprofit or a small business somewhere, someone you know or that a friend knows, who needs something solved. Ideally it's a report or other batch process, not an interactive data-entry system, because that simplifies your work and lets you focus on the data aspect.

Attack the data end first, carefully, applying what you learned. Diagram your logical model and explain it to the user. (I find people can understand E-R diagrams and normalization well enough to facilitate discussion. Sometimes there are "too many tables", but they usually accept when it needs that, it looks it up there.) Normalize until you're sure you've got it right. That's the "process" that matters.

By the time you're done — before you're done, really — you'll have learned more about database design and application development than most people do in college. You'll actually know something about Relational theory and normalization (not the same thing). And you'll have a reference for your next job.

What they're terrified of is people going back to hard currency.

Terrified? Please. I suppose they're also terrified of all those Econ 101 students learning about what money is, what the value of an exchange is, what value is. Oh, no, I forgot: that's the indoctrination that keeps six billion people in the Matrix. Except for a few laser-eyed gold bugs, that is.

The IRS collects tax on income. Lots of in-kind income is taxable just like cash. It should be, else non-cash income would have a tax advantage, and the whole economy would be encouraged to seek less efficient forms of payment. If you think that's a good idea, talk to my friend who, in Soviet days, got paid in shoes.

Really, it's too bad your comment can't be scored +1 ignorant. Try learning some economics before having an opinion on it. Or at least have the humility not to open your mouth and remove all doubt.