As Good as Gold

In today’s world of fiat currencies, cut loose from the gold standard, we are sailing in uncharted waters. To float? To peg? To bind? Is anything as good as gold? Professor Friedman poses the question; six eminent economists and businessmen respond.

DISCUSSIONS of international monetary reform have generally scanted the difference between two superficially similar but basically very different exchange-rate arrangements. One arrangement is a unified currency: the pound sterling in Scotland, England, and Wales, and, at an earlier date, in Ireland as well; the dollar in the fifty states of the United States and in Panama; since the currency reform of 1983, the Hong Kong dollar and the U.S. dollar; farther back in time, the pre—World War I gold standard, when pound, dollar, franc, and Mark were simply different names for specified fixed amounts of gold.

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Milton Friedman

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In today’s world of fiat currencies, cut loose from the gold standard, we are sailing in uncharted waters. To float? To peg? To bind? Is anything as good as gold? Professor Friedman poses the question; six eminent economists and businessmen respond.

DISCUSSIONS of international monetary reform have generally scanted the difference between two superficially similar but basically very different exchange-rate arrangements. One arrangement is a unified currency: the pound sterling in Scotland, England, and Wales, and, at an earlier date, in Ireland as well; the dollar in the fifty states of the United States and in Panama; since the currency reform of 1983, the Hong Kong dollar and the U.S. dollar; farther back in time, the pre—World War I gold standard, when pound, dollar, franc, and Mark were simply different names for specified fixed amounts of gold.