Bull,

To clarify some points:

I began my response to your gold-standard post with "never say never" and ended it with the belief that a gold standard is a "low-probability event in the near future." Neither of those statements, to me, says I believe it can't happen.

Timing is the key point. The subject of when does matter. While you have a healthy lifestyle and may be contemplating a Biblical lifespan measured in centuries, I'm 54, pushing, 55, eat meat, and, although I just got back from my daily four-mile hike in the woods, I'm not anticipating seeing 100 or anything close to it. So, if gold eventually is widely recognized as the universal currency and store of wealth in 2040, it won't help me. I'd prefer tomorrow, if not sooner. But I don't think you're guaranteeing that, or even next year.

You equate the inevitability of a gold standard with the arrival of the great flood or earthquakes, both of which are natural, not monetary phenomena. Death is inevitable. A gold standard is somewhat less inevitable. Or perhaps better put, its immortal lifespan is less inevitable. The world has had gold standards in the past and discarded them when they proved too restrictive. The immutable way of human nature, which you referenced, argues strongly that even if we went on a gold standard yet again, it wouldn't last indefinitely.

And, finally, my references to a gold standard rising from the ashes of a destroyed economic system was meant to refer to the house having already collapsed/burned to the ground, not merely being in a state of crumbling. What is happening now is trying to shore up the exisiting system--fingers, toes and even the odd nose in the dike trying to patch holes that are increasing in number. When that fails and it's time to start fresh with a new dike, that's when the gold standard has its best chance of being adopted.

One further aside, hyperinflation and currency collapse might not mean all paper currencies are toast. It's a relative thing, as the Canadian dollar has been evidencing in it's rise to parity with the US dollar. Currencies of countries whose economies are closely aligned with natural resource wealth, and whose governments don't succumb to the lure of the printing press, might be spared total immolation.

Goldcarp