What would happen if we returned to the gold standard? World
Bank President Robert Zoellick set economists atwitter Monday
with a column arguing that the G20 should "consider employing
gold as an international reference point of market expectations
about inflation, deflation and future currency values." (He also
recommended a bunch of other things that no one paid attention
to because they didn't include the word "gold.") The Wall Street
Journal praised Zoellick for "offering a better policy path:
More careful monetary policy in the U.S., and more U.S.
leadership abroad with a goal of greater monetary cooperation
and less volatile exchange rates." Berkeley economist Brad
DeLong, meanwhile, declared Zoellick in the running for
"Stupidest Man Alive." No one claims that a return to the gold
standard is imminent. "It's about as likely as Barack Obama
suggesting he should step down and John McCain should be
president," says J.D. Foster, an economist at the Heritage
Foundation. "We're in the realm of extreme fantas