The Road Ahead
Deflate the dollars, or redefine the dollar’s weight—or some blend of the two.
Source: Mises Institute
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DW NOTE
Rothbard's 1962 transition problem is not a transition problem in 2026 — it's a rounding error. The Fed holds 8,134 tonnes of gold. At $4,309 per ounce, that's $1.13 trillion. M2 money supply stands at $21.4 trillion. Full gold backing at the current price requires devaluing the dollar by 95%, or deflating the money stock by nineteen-twentieths. One is politically impossible, the other is liquidation on a civilisational scale. The third option — the one no one mentions — is that gold never backs the dollar again, and scholars keep arguing for what is true because someone has to.