1. Simon: Even in a mad max reality, there will need to be a medium of exchange. How else will able to exchange your petrol for food - across borders? Bartering of goods `evolved' when we established the first currencies. it enabled us to convert excess production into a store of value without it perishing. otherwise theres no basis for producing more `grain' than required to meet your bartering needs? No basis for expanding productivity. I am in agreement, we might not see a collapse of the current money system in our lifetimes, but we may well see the precursor effects to such an eventuality. You and I have a lifetime ahead of us. What of the aged looking to protect their wealth for the generations of their own to follow? Cash in the bank in the face of rising global inflation is leading to negative real rates of return. People are getting poorer by putting their money in the most `conservative' asset class. Cash. 2. Saint: In 1933 President Roosevelt Nationalized Gold by making it illegal for US citizens to hold Gold or ever exchange $ for Gold. He confiscated all Gold in the US by forcing the public to sell to the Reserve Bank. He did not abolish the Gold standard, quite to the contrary, he provided the impetus for $ strength through the monopolization of US gold into the hands of the Federal Reserve, he provided the basis for US$ credibility in relation to the maintenance of the Gold Standard. A ratio of $ to Gold was able to be maintained, and hence the $ became the reserve currency of choice by most central banks when faced with falling supply of the metal. You are correct, inflation did exist from time immemorial, due to gold coin debasement. The gold standard was meant to remedy this possibility. From 700BC with Gold as the global currency of the civilized world - the Byzantine and Arabian Empires flourished as the centre of Global trade for 800yrs. Notably they incurred no devaluation of their gold coins. (because they had strict regulatory controls over banking - debasement, was considered theft, punishable by amputation!) The failure of the money system has been due to the lack of regulatory controls, we have allowed the divisible hand to exert too much influence, when the gold standard was abolished in 1973 - the first money market was formed within months. Today we have worldwide stock exchange assets at $51trillion, yet the value of derivative instruments worldwide are at $480trillion! - Which goes to show that there is a hell of a lot of `created' cash chasing these limited real assets. currency risks go hand in hand with speculative risk. They are both on the increase - because of the systemic problem with the modern money system. 3. Mkadir: I copy and pasted my own sentences from MS Word, since writing directly into the forum window leaves you susceptible to losing your work if the page refreshes.