I en anden tråd nævnte General Prier at guldfoden ikke er en god ting pga pris instabilitet.
Jeg har fundet lidt uddybende materiale som viser at:

“Because economies under the gold standard were so vulnerable to real and monetary shocks, prices were highly unstable in the short run. A measure of short-term price instability is the coefficient of variation, which is the ratio of the standard deviation of annual percentage changes in the price level to the average annual percentage change. The higher the coefficient of variation, the greater the short-term instability. For the United States between 1879 and 1913, the coefficient was 17.0, which is quite high. Between 1946 and 1990 it was only 0.8."

Her noterer jeg mig at i relativ fredstid uden større guldfund er der stabilitet under en guldfod (en bimetalfod er nok at foretrække)

Men som fordel er der:

Moreover, because the gold standard gives government very little discretion to use monetary policy, economies on the gold standard are less able to avoid or offset either monetary or real shocks. Real output, therefore, is more variable under the gold standard. The coefficient of variation for real output was 3.5 between 1879 and 1913, and only 1.5 between 1946 and 1990. Not coincidentally, since the government could not have discretion over monetary policy, unemployment was higher during the gold standard. It averaged 6.8 percent in the United States between 1879 and 1913 versus 5.6 percent between 1946 and 1990."

So it would appear that the major benefit to the gold standard is that it can prevent long-term inflation in a country. However, as Brad DeLong22 points out, “if you do not trust a central bank to keep inflation low, why should you trust it to remain on the gold standard for generations?" It does not look like the gold standard will make a return to the United States anytime in the foreseeable future.

Klart at hvis bankerne/regeringerne ikke overholder aftalen har vi balladen.

Ovenstående er sakset fra:
http://economics.about.com/cs/money/a/gold_standard.htm?p=1
hvis der er nogen der vil se mere……….