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Debt Is The Barbarous Relic! Not Gold
Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
“The first form of culture,” wrote historian Will Durant, “is agriculture.”
And he was right. When human beings discovered 10,000 years ago that the soil would provide more food than they could possibly eat, this changed everything.
For the first time ever, early humans could actually work WITH nature and reliably control their food production.
They were no longer dependent on unpredictable wildlife or the dangers of the hunt.
Nor were they resigned to devouring an entire beast in one sitting, only to end up right back where they started– in search of their next meal.
Agriculture gave them the opportunity to produce far more than they could consume. And to easily save the surplus for a later time.
To save like this is completely natural. And by that I mean saving is part of nature.
Dogs bury their bones. Squirrels hoard nuts. Even plants set aside some excess solar energy for a rainy day by producing and storing sugar.
For us humans, agriculture was our earliest form of savings. And it was the key ingredient to civilization.
With a vast pool of food savings at his disposal, early man could put down roots and build societies without having to worry about where the next meal would come from.
It was this sense of savings that formed the dividing line between primitive man and civilized man.
This reminds me of that old criticism about gold being a “barbarous relic”.
John Maynard Keynes first coined the term when he denounced the gold standard, and Paul Krugman has echoed this sentiment in our own time.
Both men are champions of government spending and the inexhaustible creation of paper money.
It’s a curious statement, though, given that gold is an acknowledged form of savings.
Even governments and central banks around the world continue to hold gold as part of their official reserves.
Owning gold is saving, which by definition is civilized, i.e. NOT barbarous.
Debt, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. It is a lack of savings that shows a complete disregard for the future.
It is the modern equivalent of gorging on some wild beast with no thought to tomorrow’s meal… or in this case, no thought of tomorrow’s generation.
Debt is the barbarous relic. Not gold.
And governments are up to their eyeballs in it, continuing to engage in this primitive, uncivilized behavior with wanton abandon.
Don’t expect them to change their ways.
Our society awards our most respected prizes for intellectual achievement to faux-scientists who encourage these barbarous acts.
They create complex mathematical models, ‘proving’ why our Neanderthal governments should print more money, borrow more debt, and stage fake alien invasions to boost the economy.
No doubt future anthropologists will find this to be a curious and savage system.
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Nooooo wayyyyyyy....
It's GOLD! Ben Bernank said so! It must be true!
These financial advisors and commentators, who claim the correct allocation to gold is zero, are fools and clearly not paying attention.
... Washington D C hookers only accept Gold....no paper money payments , ever.
Gold = tradition. Some balding, bearded, quivering, jewish dbag told me so...
~"Debt Is The Barbarous Relic!"~
And supposedly extinguishable. But that's one mean feat these days. They print it as currency and the shit never dies.
" Barbarous (among ancient Greeks) designating a person or thing of non-Greek origin" Modern Greeks have a different view on debt.
What you are witnessing is the worst a human race can be, it doesn't occur often, but has occurred before.
Debt is not a barbarous relic... it is an irresponsible state of existence. Live for today -- maybe pay tomorrow. It makes children of adults and prevents a necessary maturation process. All part of the usurer's plan. Dumb, immature people are easier to manipulate than thinking men and women.
Money today is better than money in the future. If you can invest and get returns higher than an imterest rate high enough to compensate for the average risk of defaults plus the banker's cut (he is supposed to take on risk, does not he), then theres nothing wrong with getting credit.
Credit for consumption is wrong, i suppose.
"Debt is not a barbarous relic... it is an irresponsible state of existence. Live for today -- maybe pay tomorrow."
Welcome to Greece (and the U.S.) as well as MANY here on ZH who cheer defaulting on what one borrows. There is no right or wrong. No honoring one's promises. Good luck in that/this world.
It does not because the average human craves credit. Even having a tab at a local bar counts as credit.
Goldman Sacks soon to sell Bar Tab backed derivatives.
"The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"--which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants--becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's." --- Paul Krugman, Red Herring Magazine
Krugman is a moron. The fact that anyone listens to that sycophant for the elites will someday be a fantastic source of humor for those that live after us.
Such prescient predictions surely merit a Nobel Prize
That's if you want to get one the hard way. The easy way is to just be from a protected class and get elected.
Only banksters call gold a barbarous relic as they cannot enslave you with it.
And that is why the Fed is constantly attacking gold
Fed Chairman Bernanke Says “Gold Is Not Money”Nope, it's better....
That is why I have been buying only silver the last 6 months.....
Yet BOTH metals, especially silver, are economic kryptonite to these bank$ter scum. I've grown very thankful for their continued manipulation of PM's. I've stacked for over a decade and can safely predict my wait for the Big One ain't much longer. Keep stackin' and taking advantage of these wonderful Gifts, bro!
I agree but can you elaborate on why silver and not gold? Thanks and stack high!
The gold/silver ratio is messed up right now. Owning silver when it normalizes would allow you to pick up some gold on the cheap.
She's married to a lawyer so the gold would mess up her day.
They are hellbent on destroying the people's attitude vis a vis gold and silver. They want you to recoil with a look like you just smelled a dead rat when you see it. But gold is money. This is in our DNA so they have a tough row to hoe there. Since it is only money, thousands of tons, mined over hundreds of years are safely esconced in vaults and desk drawers around the world. Destroy the love of gold and it can go down down down.
Silver, OTOH, is such a useful metal, and so critical to the production of so much of our technology they can't destroy it by propaganda alone. The industrial users will clamor for it, pay any price to keep it coming in, and they will never stop until a substitute is found. (Good luck!) All this silver ends up in landfills in trace amounts that are impossible to profitably recycle. If new production is squelched, well, they're going to have a real problem keeping it cheap.
It was also the money of billions of people, so it's a double threat. There is probably about 6 times more gold above ground than silver, and the silver is being consumed daily.
The price of silver is grossly absurd and ridiculous, and that's why I prefer it over gold.
Miners Cheapest Relative to Gold in Over 30 Years!
http://www.goldsqueeze.com/analysis/gold-miners-cheapest-relative-to-gol...
Debt never sleeps.
ZeroHedge SAID ... "
Debt, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. It is a lack of savings that shows a complete disregard for the future."
INDEED ... that is why some Native Americans refer to the people in Washington DC, and also on Wall Street today, as
"THE PEOPLE WHO HATE THEIR CHILDREN".
Because ...
When you trash the future of America - so you can extract a handsome profit now
When you tear up the land and mine the minerals, and you never restore the Earth
When you spend lavishly and expect the Next Generation to pay for your sins ...
YOU DO HATE YOUR CHILDREN!!!
The native americans hated their children by letting them be slaughtered.
Too soon?
Simplified beyond meaningful.
When all the debt money schemes and fiat currencies are swept into the dustbin of history, gold and silver coins and bars are the only things that persist. That is why gold and silver persist as money. It is the only currency without counterparty risk. If you're a bankster it really doesn't matter as they can fractionalize anything and cream the productivity out of it.
I suppose they offer liquidity, but you can save value in any number of ways. Real estate, knowledge, machinery, stocks, etc.
PD, when i said stocks, i meant partial ownership of a productive enterprise. Its kosher.
Exactly why banks and governments are pushing for debt based societies!
The world some of us grew up in is gone!
Credit = debt = slavery
"We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us."
— Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 1985
This whole comment can be summarized in a sentence:
Our society will fail because most individuals are fucking retarded.
Here is what Freud said about "folks":
"The masses have never thirsted after truth. They demand illusions, and cannot do without them. They constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real; they are almost as strongly influenced by what is untrue as by what is true. They have an evident tendency not to distinguish between the two."
- Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and The Analysis of The Ego, 1921
YEAH "Primitive Man"....HOW DARE YOU TRY AND EXIST WITHOUT FIAT MONEY?!!!
WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE MISTER KING OF THE HUNT?
I mean seriously....the problem everyone is having is FREE money...that "some folks pay while others do not."
The question ought to be "why does this question even matter?"
I beg to differ as I beleive I am not the problem.
And after that Planned Parenthood (what an oxymoron) video, you are surprised at the barbarous activity of banks and governments?
Debt, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. It is a lack of savings that shows a complete disregard for the future.
Debt is "a promise to complete a trade". We call it money. It was invented to enable simple barter over time and space.
This is obvious from examining the three steps of trade: (1) Negotiation; (2) Promise to deliver; (3) Delivery.
In simple barter, (2) and (3) happen simultaneously on the spot. Debt (i.e. money) allows (2) and (3) to happen over time and space. It brings enormous efficiencies and flexibility to simple barter trades.
What is bad is DEFAULT. DEFAULT happens when step (3- Delivery) doesn't take place. This is the case with "all" governments. Step (3) is "rolled over" ... i.e. it is DEFAULTED. It almost never happens with non-government traders. When it does happen, it is usually caused by the bankers' cyclical farming operation they refer to as the "business cycle".
During the process of a trade, the "certified trading promises" created by traders circulate as the most valued object in simple barter trades. They are most valued because they are (1) in free supply; (2) never lose their value (i.e INFLATION of the MOE is guaranteed to be zero); and (3) are universally accepted in trade.
When the trading promise is delivered, the certificates are returned and destroyed. Before the trade no money (debt) reserved to this trade exists. After the trade no money (debt) reserved to this trade exists ... unless the trader fails to deliver ... i.e. unless the trader DEFAULTs.
This is where the proper management of the Medium of Exchange (MOE) comes in. The process that manages the creation of the certificates also monitors for delivery as promised. If such delivery is not made, the DEFAULT is immediately recovered with like INTEREST collections.
The operative relation is INFLATION = DEFAULT - INTEREST = zero.
It is not debt that is the ogre. It is DEFAULTs. But once a trader DEFAULTs, he is actuarially marked as an unreliable trader. It is these traders who "pay" the INTEREST. Reliable traders do not pay INTEREST. And if the trader becomes chronically unreliable, his INTEREST load equals his proposed trading promise and he is automatically closed out of the market. With proper management of the MOE "all" traders enjoy a predictable money value (i.e. zero INFLATION of the MOE ... all the time ... everywhere).
Well ... actually not "all" traders enjoy it. Traders involved in high-leverage trades (e.g. low money down real-estate traders and OPM ... "other people's money" traders) must have INFLATION to make their trades viable. Thus, with a properly managed MOE and guaranteed zero INFLATION, this group of traders (bankers and speculatiors and investors and governments ... i.e. market parasites) need to find something else to do. Their principal source of income and advantage vaporizes. The time value of money disappears ... one raised to any power is still one.
It's really very simple. No capital or relics are involved at all.
Interest rates are supposed to account for the risk of default. Even the "unethical" interest charged on money created out of thin air compensates for the risk of losses, and that risk if well estimated, needs to materialize at some point. Some loans will never be paid, or not paid back in full. The bank or merchant issuing credit compensates with interest rates or higher prices.
People need to get through their heads the idea that defaults are supposedly baked in if the risk analysts did their job.
Interest rates are supposed to account for the risk of default.
Does it seem peculiar to you in that light, that it's so easy to find interest time series but you can't find default time series? And if that's the case, what is LIBOR about? And why, when I asked a president of a bank what interest should be he answered "whatever the market will bear". Interest should obviously be exactly equal to default. Applying actuarial techniques just anticipates defaults. But when they're not monitoring defaults and reporting them in real time, how do they expect to know what interest should be?
interest charged on money created out of thin air compensates for the risk of losses, and that risk if well estimated, needs to materialize at some point.
First, all money is created out of thin air ... promises are created out of thin air and money is an in-process promise to complete a trade. Anything else is a counterfeit. As far as risk being "well estimated", why is there a prevailing interest rate on car loans and mortgages (subject to qualification). Shouldn't they be a "function of" qualification? Not all traders are equally reliable are they?
People need to get through their heads the idea that defaults are supposedly baked in if the risk analysts did their job.
People need to get through their heads that money is "a promise to complete a trade" and that interest must always exactly equal defaults for inflation to be zero. Our controllers clearly "don't" have that through their heads since they are publicly shooting for 2% inflation and have delivered 4% over the last 100 years.
And regarding DEFAULTs. How do characterize rollovers? How do you detect rollovers?
In a system where currency is brought into existence through the creation of debt, defaults are not merely baked into the risk analysis: they're baked into the cake.
Viewed as a whole, where are the debtors supposed to find the interest, if the only currency that exists is the principle? This is why in our system further indebtedness is the only way to prevent defaults. Not exactly a stable system.
In a natural monetary system, the interest on a debt can be found with a pickaxe and a fair bit of sweat.
At the base its just an issue of risk. Fiat money or not.
You have some capital. You can save it, invest it wisely taking moderate risks and expecting moderate returns, or take large risks that could make you or backfire. What will you choose?
At the base its just an issue of risk. Fiat money or not.
I have pointed out repeatedly that managing any Medium of Exchange (MOE) is like managing an insurance portfolio. With an insurance portfolio, premiums equal claims and the money is made on investing the float. With a mutual insurance company, those investment returns go to the insured in the form of lower premiums.
With MOE management, interest equals default yielding zero inflation. There is nothing to invest. Thus there is no investment income. There is "no" profit in managing an MOE.
"All" money is fiat as I'm sure you are using the term. It is all created out of thin air because it is promises to complete trades and they are created out of thin air. Unfortunately, we also have a huge trader "counterfeiting". It's "all" governments. They never deliver on their trades and they never intend to.
You can save it, invest it wisely taking moderate risks and expecting moderate returns, or take large risks that could make you or backfire. What will you choose?
That is true ... but has nothing to do with money and the proper management of an MOE. No one would ever consider a Picasso to be capital, yet it performs in exactly the way you describe. And regarding the "saving" option: You save it by trusting it with a bank which makes about 40% a year on your savings. Thus, in two years, the bank has doubled your money ... but kept all but a trivial fraction for itself. And this says nothing about the banks' farming operations (i.e. what they call the business cycle). And when the banks screw up and a run starts? ... ah .... capital controls. Capital is a farce ... a really sick hoax.
Your other option is to save it under a mattress ... where our current MOE manager guarantees you a 2% leak called inflation ... and leaks into his own bucket at 4%.
I'm in California, the alien invasions are definitly not fake.
California belonged to Diego de la Vega, and is now reverting to its original owners; aka to Zorro.
Guy Williams, the good ol' days.
Z
Greenspam was for the Barbarous Relic, before he was against the Barbarous Relic, before he was for the Barbarous Relic again.
Quite Barbarous
Debt and Credit relations exist outside of money. Pre-money economies in man’s evolution were small tribes of 100 people’s or less. These small tribes simply remembered who owed who what. To extinguish a debt/credit relation meant paying back your debts, even across time.
The debts and credits were in services or goods….not money.
Debt and Credit relations could be marked down, and then it becomes a tally. A tally implies more than 100 people in a tribe, and the contract is taking on an element of law.
A sphere of ivory would represent a debt owed, especially in small tribes of less than 100.
Tool money, where the metal represents something, was probably a tally representing a goods debt.
Egypt had a demurrage form of money, where clay shards represented how much grain was stored in the “treasury. “ The shards would be discounted regularly upon redemption, as the grain would be eaten by mice and fungus. This type of money was not “credit money” as we know it today; it was goods money that related to grain goods already stored and on hand.
Egyptians gold hoops fashioned as earrings, probably doubled as money outside of the local economy, especially as hoops were found far away from Egypt.
Money became necessary as human settlements grew from small tribes to cities:
http://michael-hudson.com/1999/03/from-sacred-enclave-to-temple-to-city/
The initial farming settlements used barley by weight as an exchange medium. Barley could make beer and people liked to get drunk. The original barely weights were based on divisions of 30, for a 30 day month. Barely by weight was traded as money.
Public sector grew up around the temples of the bigger towns. This temple/public sector had widows and orphans working to make goods. These goods would then trade with other towns far away.
In order to account for the goods exchange, the Temples started using money by weight. Effectively the metal by weight was an extension of the barley and goods ledger. Gold especially was found in alluvial plains where rivers dump out into deltas. This metal found its way the temples as jewelry and tribute, and hence eventually was coined to represent the temple ledger. The gold or silver money issued by the Temple was the temple ledger made portable. Temple priests lost some control over their society at this point in time.
Metal money was expressed in ‘grain weight’ which is barley grain as measured on a balance scale.
Metal as money by weight morphed into something stamped and coined. At this point, the weight association is lost, and money becomes law. It took thousands of years for man to notice this shift.
This gold law type money floated without an accounting periodicity. The metal content is still confused with the law and this confusion is often promulgated by usurers who intend to keep a hypnotic grip on man’s mind.
Credit as money is much newer in history, almost in the modern age. Credit money does not float forever in the money supply, it is recalled in its accounting periodicity and this period is based on a debt instrument as mirror. Credit as money fluxes for a time, is used as a money proxy to settle transactions, and then disappears upon loan payback. Credit as money behaves the same as a when paying back a goods debt, the credit/debt contract cancels out into nothingness. When credit as money first came on the scene, this credit was paid for with money. Credit is issued and it can be paid back with the same credit – as if one is borrowing an item and returning that item. Or, Credit is issued and it paid back with money. Metal was the floating “stamped” money that legally could cancel bank credit. This metal came into being outside of the banking system, as it was dug out of the ground.
The first country hosted with private debt means was the Bank of England in 1694. To get this new form of private issuance money to be accepted, it needed to be stamped with the law. In all cases today, private banker credit is now good for taxes and good for settling debts.
The hypnotism of humans is now complete; debt based money usurps the law, and is sanctioned by government to pay debts “public and private.”
www.sovereignmoney.eu
Yes debt is a more toxic and newer version of that old concept.
great article, and while I agree with above post stating its a bit simplistic [for zerohedge readers] this is the more than most ordinary people can comprehend when you mention gold to them.
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and because its in physical and in your control its not subject to bail in's, capital controls, inflation/deflation or other sanctioned thefts. Gold is money everything else is just worthless derivatives on a long term time scale.
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"The first form of culture,” wrote historian Will Durant, “is agriculture. "
Great. Somebody else I won't bother to read.
Stringing words together and making nice rhymes are by no means enough to get a meaningful sentence.
"cul-ture
[kuhl-cher]
noun
1. the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.
2. that which is excellent in the arts, manners, etc.
3. a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period:
Greek culture.
4. development or improvement of the mind by education or training.
5. the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group:
the youth culture; the drug culture.
6. Anthropology. the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another."
So, the hunters-gatherers that preceded the farmers also had a culture, i.e, transmitted knowledge. Just ask an Apache Indian, who can name any animal by its tracks, gauge its weight, if it's healthy or not and trail it over miles because his grandad showed him how it's done, whereas I would be totally unable to even spot the track.
Thank you for your attention.
Use gold or anything else for private debts but as for debts to governments, inexpensive fiat is the ONLY ethical money form else the taxation authority and power of government is abused to favor private interests such as gold owners.
Article: Debt is the modern equivalent of gorging on some wild beast with no thought to tomorrow’s meal… or in this case, no thought of tomorrow’s generation.
Actually, debt is like eating other folks food today without concern for tomorrow.
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In practice today, almost all debt is simply a form of short-term thinking. Debt provides a way to ignore causality, ignore future consequences. Enjoy NOW.
And tomorrow? Blank stare, or "we'll worry about that tomorrow". Except when tomorrow comes, so do consequences. Those consequences include NOT being able to enjoy [much of] what you earned or produced today (recently). Why? Because you must sent what you produced today (recently) to whoever you borrowed from. PLUS extra (interest).
Ultimately, debt is irresponsible short-term non-thinking.
-----
DISCLAIMER: There are rare (today) situations where debt isn't quite as crazy. If your business has long struggled to meet demand and prospects for growth are hampered by insufficient supply, it MIGHT BE prudent to borrow to install additional productive machinery to meet demand. However, even in this situation, debt is arguably unwise... especially in modern times where economies are massively manipuated and thus subject to huge fluctuations. The fact is, if demand for your goods are so high, you should be able to save enough to expand. If you can't, excess demand is arguably insufficient to justify expansion. Without debt, growth is automatically organic and reasonable.
-----
While I like this article, the fact is, fiat is the barbarous relic, not debt (though debt is indeed bad news). Debt can exist in a pure gold standard too (where "pure gold standard" means all transactions include real, physical gold coins).
To be sure, in a fiat system debt can vastly exceed savings, which means the disaster caused by debt can be enormously greater (as we see now). However, the fundamental disaster (barbarous relic) is fiat (including fractional reserve practices).
Also, "agriculture" is the first form of "human production", not "culture". So while this article contains important insights, his terms and causality are confused. Actually, it seems very much like Simon took messages of mine from past ZH articles and reformulated them into something that appears original. But in doing so, he screwed up the logic and causality.
It is not the fault of debt that some don't use it properly. I couldn't have built wealth without debt. Everything has its use and its cycle.
I started with $150 in savings, an old pickup and a low-paying job. Anyone can do the same, I'm nothing special. People are doing the same thing right now.
I'd be bored to tears sitting around with a pile of gold waiting for the "Great Collapse" so I can get my head bashed in by someone after my gold.
Instead I have isolated farmland with wells run by windmills. It's more fun.
There are two kinds of debt, outside of consumer (normally rare), and investment (capital) loans.
The two are real-debt, and fiat-debt.
Real debt is someone loaning their savings, from forgone consumption, to another for personal consumption or investment consumption for increased future production.
Fiat-debt is wealth stolen from others and fenced via an unsuspecting borrower. The borrower's purchases with the stolen, and printed, loot, undermine the economy and society, and reduce the borrower's chances of repaying the fiat-loan. Of course, then, the Zion's banksters come and confiscate the borrower's collateral, and/or lay claim to his future production/ages. Which then is the realization by the banksters of converting ex nihilo production, fiat and counterfeit, into claims on real property.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
@ Simon Black:
I logged in here, just so I could comment on the fact that this is, without a doubt, one of the best, most well-spoken truths I've ever read online.
Fiat has its place in society, and it does serve a useful purpose. The problem is, the people in charge of creating fiat recognize the power they wield, and you know what they say about 'absolute power'.
The hypnotism is deep. I just told everybody here straight up the real history of metal money. Money does not pre date debt. Debts and Credits exist naturally as part of our human evolution. Anthropologists have deconstructed monetary history, and it is not as most imagine.
When you borrow anything from somebody else a credit/debtor relation is formed. That relation can be extinguised with a good, a service, or with money.
Gold as money was part of Coin history . Coin history is somthing like 2 thousand years old. This type of money is floating and was law based. Confusing the material it is made of, and its true nature is part of the hypnotism.
The reality is, that there are rules regarding the behavior of a money system, and a lawless Gold system is a false standard. There is no magick to metal.
For example, when the Norman's kicked the Jews out of England circa 1100, they were allowed to take their Gold as money with them. This then collapsed the money supply. People could not trade their output, and hence their labor had no "numerical value."
England then morphed into a talley stick system, which worked well for them till about 1700. Talleys were law based money, could not be counterfeited, they were tangible, and good for taxes. These type of talley were actually money because they circulated as a pay to the bearer instrument and did not define what the "debt' was.
Metal is not money. Money is law. Saying the metal is money, is like saying Math is Metal.
Perhaps the hypnotism is part of human DNA. An alien visitor would orbit around the earth, look down, and wonder about the hairless monkeys worshiping yellow metal.
The fact that humans are rent seekers and try to game any system for their advantage, is no reason for one to make a false leap, and then impute metal with some magick "god like" power. The fact that Gold is a Noble metal and cannot rust, does not mean it is eternal and outside of nature. Man is the animal that gives money its value.
If gold bugs want to shill for metal money, then limit it to a goods exchange role. For example, to mark international trade. If one country becomes mercantile and exports too much, then the debtor country looses its gold. But, internal to the debtor country it would not do to have the money supply collapse. Even a cursory review of monetary history shows that that this sort of barbourous metal money system would cause war. It especially caused war in the modern era, because bank credit rode on top of Gold in a 10 to 1 ratio, which acted as an amplifier whenever trade became imbalanced. Trade imbalance cause rapid reduction in credit formation for a debtor country.
Sovereign money is a floating money system, similar to coin history.
Money is a "certified promise to complete a trade". It is created by traders making trading promises. It is extinguished by traders delivering on those promises. Thus, the supply and demand for money is always in perfect balance. This is how it originates now, in the past, and in the future. It's an efficient tool enhancing simple barter.
While the trading promise is progressing toward delivery (over time and space), the money (certified trading promises) circulate as the most desired object of simple barter. They are favored because (1) they are in free supply; (2) supply and demand for them is in perfect balance; (3) they never lose value over time and space; (4) they are universally accepted in trade (due to their attributes (1), (2), and (3)).
In the olden days, it wasn't possible to monitory the trading promises and reclaim defaults with interest collections. So they did the next best thing. They standardized tokens to do the same thing. This created the supply / demand imbalance problems we have to this day. It also resulted in periodic market starvation ... not because the traders didn't want to trade, but because they couldn't obtain the tokens in exchange for their trading promises. The money changers then created currency and accounting entries as symbols of the tokens. This compounded the problem by giving a tiny minority of elites the ability to counterfeit at will and to manipulate supply.
With the technology and communications we have today, we no longer have to settle for these inferior substitutes. The sooner we move to a properly managed Medium of Exchange (MOE) where INFLATION = DEFAULT - INTEREST = zero, the faster we can purge our markets of government and money changer parasites.