I don't see this posted here yet.

The Dollar In Danger

For a quarter-century after World War II, money was based on a loose version of the gold standard. The U.S. dollar was pegged to gold; other currencies were pegged to the dollar; stable prices underpinned the prosperity and soaring trade of the 1950s and '60s. Then in 1971 Richard Nixon balked at the high interest rates necessary to maintain the dollar's link to gold. For the rest of the decade, inflation ripped. The cure, starting in 1979, involved two recessions in the United States and the Third World debt crisis.
Most economists assume that the dollar will continue to act as the global currency because there is no alternative. But one of my colleagues at the Council on Foreign Relations, Benn Steil, has proposed another option -- a privately created currency that would confer an inflation-proof claim on gold or a basket of commodities. Steil calls his idea "digital gold," which has a nice back-to-the-future ring. The more the dollar slides, the less Steil's suggestion sounds like a fantasy from a movie studio.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... inionsbox1