Epistle to the Gold Commissioners

The gold standard is an idea whose time is past — long past. The classical gold standard is not a superior method of solving our current problems of inflation and unemployment, whatever its merits a century ago. Advocates of a return to the gold standard offer their nostrum as a means of stabilizing prices but offer few details about how this desirable goal would be reached. All that we are usually told is that the gold standard is a "supply-side11 solution, a radical change that will reduce interest rates, stabilize prices and eliminate the summers excess supply of zucchini. None of these claims is true.