Economics: Gold Standard, Silver Standard, Fiat, Miscellaneous?

Well it's not just that. People believe that if you have gold standard, then there's no inflation. In fact, inflation is substantially worse because population growth outstrips gold production significantly. In addition, those producing gold get the most money first. Fiat currency means the government decides who is allocated money first (and in the case of USA, the bankers hold the gov by the balls but that's a different discussion).

With gold standard, you have no ability to tie wealth production with skill (hitting gold in a mine is pure blind dumb luck). With fiat currency, you have the choice to grow the wealth to people who are more useful.

And in both cases, there is inflation. As gold supply decreases at a per capita rate, each lump of gold is worth more. Today, having an ounce of gold can buy you fresh good quality groceries for half a year. You think you are going to lug that around? Hell no. You'll have paper represent it and the gold sits in the vault and then nobody actually checks on the vault to see if the gold is actually there and then... bam you run into the same problem as fiat currency except with the additional problems of spot-price, instability of the price (one day you can buy a car with your gold, next day, it buys you a burger) and supply problems (what if some place can't actually get any gold, do they start eating dirt?).

Is it acceptable to revive this thread? I wanted to start a gold/silver standard thread but looked to see if one existed.

Anyway, silver and gold are apparently at rather low prices compared to in the past, and my brother thinks he should buy a lot now before it goes up in value. I'm considering hedging my money by buying silver.

When you buy gold or silver, you invest in a commodity, just like oil or wheat or real estate. Don't think of it as currency; think of it as long-term speculation.