Top Pro & Con Arguments
Con
Many prominent economists oppose returning to a gold standard.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stated that a return to the gold standard would mean “other things would fluctuate, and we [the Federal Reserve] wouldn’t care. We wouldn’t care if unemployment went up or down. That wouldn’t be our job anymore.” [134]
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has called returning to a gold standard “an almost comically (and cosmically) bad idea.” [45]
Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, PhD, has said “the gold standard would not be feasible for both practical reasons and policy reasons.” [44]
In one survey of 50 economic experts, all senior faculty members at “elite research universities,” not a single one believed returning to a gold standard would be “better for the average American” in terms of price stability or employment outcomes. [43] One of the experts, Anil K. Kashyap, PhD, Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Chicago, stated, “Love of the G.S. [gold standard] implies macroeconomic illiteracy.” [43]
Read More