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the "gold standard" i typically hear about from people who share your beliefs is one in which no government can move the price of gold vs. the currency against which it is set, and one that cannot be removed so as to engender complete faith in the standard that would be unchanging.

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The gold standard that I would hope for would be for no central bank controlling currency, and among the competing banks I would personally choose the bank that I trusted the most to avoid FRL, and used a commodity (most likely gold) as its reserve.
If there is to be a central bank then I would prefer them to be on the gold standard so that when they do get greedy or power hungry you can figure it out/point it out to everyone easier. Then they have to explain why they are breaking their promises to everyone.

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my point was that we have to define a "gold standard." according to you then we have had gold standards in the past. according to the definition i provided in my post, we've never actually had one because govt's always interjected.

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so what would you expect to see under a gold standard?

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I would expect higher savings rates in general, in the long run more goods and services targeted toward those who had saved, and more rigid lending practices. Were you asking for something more specific? I am not very sure where you want to go with that question.

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why are you purposefully misquoting me?

in my initial post i asked under a "true gold standard" and above you took out the word "true." sneaky buy i caught it. i asked because i want to see how we could get to a true gold standard (where nobody has the authority to change the value of the X: gold) and what we could expect to see in times of trouble.

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to my knowledge, this has never occurred in reality. nor could it ever occur in reality given where we are now

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There have been quite a few periods of commodities standards that I know of. The pound sterling in Britain and Roman coinage come to mind. Neither lasted indefinitely (that would be to much to ask) but both currencies were fully backed for significant periods of time.

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so studying what happened during those periods could be instructive (even though they did as you mentioned fall apart). did those govt's or authorities ever change the value of the currency to the commodity? if so then it fails that test.

i was making an observation (fairly trivially though) that no "true gold standard" has ever existed, and positing that it would be extremely unlikely (almost impossible) for it to come into existance now.

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so what woudl you expect a true gold standard to be and how would you expect to get there?

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We can get there by private businesses making payments in gold to each other during periods of crisis in currencies. If the problems are big enough and last long enough more and more will flock to stability, once you hit that point a country could become a haven for investment by pegging its currency to gold.

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who would decide the peg?

how would it be enforced?

who would control flows of gold so as to keep the peg in place and how could it be assured never to break?

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also, another question, are you saying that the deflation that occurred in the 1930s was an entirely non-monetary phenomenon?

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What I meant to convey was that the depression was not caused by deflation, but that the deflation was one of the symptoms of the problems of the economy created during the 20s.

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the depression was obviously not caused by deflation. the economy during the 20s clearly had an impact and created environment which led, in many ways, to the depression and deflation.

i think though that these are trivial observations.

Barron