Rickards wrote.

"He said he expects the United States to avert the dollar's collapse by returning it to a gold standard or even to avert the collapse of currencies worldwide by sponsoring a new gold-backed international currency, with gold re-valued to perhaps $4,000 per ounce under either scenario."

Comment:

Suggest he had a reason to state $4,000.00/ounce, but for the life of me, I do not understand why.

Assuming he based it on maintaining the U.S. $ as a reserve FIAT currency, and with the U.S. government holdings of approx. 8,500 tonnes of gold, that would mean the total U.S. gold holdings would be worth just over 1.2 trillion $.

Now, assuming he allowed fractional allocation of 10 to 1, that would put total U.S. currency at 12 trillion $'s. (As of today, there is in excess of 20 trillion U.S. in circulation, in one form or another)

At present, the U.S. has liabilities of over 600 trillion $'s.

If logic does not underscore the value of the $ in gold, even this type of gold standard will collapse/ be strained.

A world currency would have to be well-designed and acceptable by the majority of nations for it to be successful.

Anything other than a well-thought out system, will be subject to abuse/eventual failure.

Good Luck to all!