Back to today...

Is the real problem China, or is the US printing too much money and auctioning off too many t-bills/bonds?

Still, money is just a tool. It increases the efficiency of the economy, but somehow I doubt that it is the only determining factor. If people were able to produce and consume, they would find ways around a scarcity of money (for example exchanging things directly).

Come to think of it, how did banks work back then? Seems to me even with a gold standard it should have been able to work with credit. So if somebody wanted to buy something from you, they could just give you a note that they owe you 100GBP? It's only the government that had to be able to present the gold, after all?

Of course working with credit has risks, but that is just the efficiency I mean. But how much more efficient is an economy with money? 10% or 1000%? If they claim that "freeing the money" rescued the economy, it sounds as if it was more on the 1000% side of the equation. Somehow I doubt it.

At the end of the article they mention that the US dollar has depreciated by approximately 30% against a basket of currencies with no appreciable affect, and they predict that further depreciation will do no good either without other changes. In other words, this upcoming trade war will have no winners, only losers.

Not advising against abandoning the gold standard (I don't know). I just don't like it if articles slip theories by me in such a way.