Poor Ben Franklin, he knew that paper was the way to prosperity with faith in the country it's only asset of "tender"...but it worked before the Revolution as colonial scrip, which the British declared invalid and illegal, replacing it with gold backed pounds sterling...which had to be "loaned" to the country to start it's new bank (sound familiar Hamilton?... the Brits still own the bank of NY today ! ) and after with the Continental, which only fell out of favor due to the British counterfeiting it out of favor. A fiat loosely based on the GNP is what I would favor, as not only would loans be more easily made by the government, with NO national debt as they would "own" the fiat and put it into circulation...under strict rules, also involving the states with rights of nullification to keep Washington in line to guard against people like helicopter Ben, etc., but also to keep the valuation of the basket of goods upon which such a fiat dollar was based in proper relation to all the areas of the country and their contributions to the GNP basket. Gold is simply a good personal hedge for expatriating...not really an American move, unless you maintain a home here as well ! With a GNP dollar, as the country does better, with proper laws, regulations, and incentives (not as now), the value of it's dollar goes up and up as production drives it's value so... like in China, where engineers run the economy, not lawyers !