Even if that’s true, the problem with fiat as reserve is that it basically acts as a curse on the country who shoulders that burden. Besides America, no other country is willing to step up to the plate.

Reserve status results in an artificially high bid on exchange rates, which decimates the export industries of the host country and results in perpetual trade deficits. The US is in a relatively unique position by being a big enough economy to absorb this impact, and by having an advanced enough financial system to sustain perpetual trade deficits by converting low yield liabilities to high yield assets.

But if for some reason or another the dollar loses reserve status, expect the central bank of any other contender to fight tooth and nail to protect their exchange rates. Just witness how the Swiss National Bank defended an arbitrary ceiling when global markets started piling en masse to the franc after the GFC. Or look at how China continuously manipulates a cheap yuan to keep exports competitive and its manufacturing based economy humming.

Without the dollar, the only long term sustainable fiat reserve I can imagine is something like the IMF SDRs. Basically the major currencies creating a basket weighted blend to make sure no single economy is burdened with reserve status.

I've read a fair share of Austrian Economics and they certainly don't believe that gold was an awful reserve. I have yet to hear a credible argument against the use of gold as a global reserve currency other than the fact that countries can cheat by lying about their reserves such as they did during WWI.

If you have reasoning to back your claim that gold was an awful reserve currency, I would love to hear it.

> I've read a fair share of Austrian Economics and they certainly don't believe that gold was an awful reserve.

Have you read a fair share of other schools of Economics, or did you just focus on Austrian?

I’ve read Keynes et al as well. None of them make a compelling case against the gold standard.

Here is former Fed chair Alan Greenspan’s bullish case for the Gold standard for example [1]

[1] http://www.altavra.com/docs/thirdparty/gold-and-economic-fre...

>they would have to resort to primitive barter

This is a common myth used to support a gold standard and it's wrong. Barter was rarely practiced because it is too impractical and theoretical. Ledgers and debt existed as soon as imbalanced trade existed.

Paying later is a form of debt. Paying too much is a form of debt. In tribal communities people simply kept the ledger in their head. Some of them used physical objects to remind them of their debts but that is not any different from writing numbers into a notebook.

Common ledgers were tally sticks [0]. You just take a long object and use a knife to mark how much debt you have. They even had a resurgence in medieval Europe because of a shortage of precious metal coins.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_stick

These are all good points and I agree with them, but I don’t understand where the quote came from and whether you are making a case for or against the gold standard.