not wanting to flame the idiocy but we all understand that matching a currency to a actual item/mineral/gold is stupidity.
once a suitable replacement for that item is found your currency is worthless...which is why no 1st world nations is matched to a standard.
paper money make things happen mainly the money multiplier
(you spend $1 at my store, i save 20 cents and spend 80 cents at another store...etc...)
that one dollar is spend 4-5 times its worth.
the multiplier was stuck around 1-2 when the US was still on a gold standard it has doubled since then, that means the economy was able to grow.
a lot of that is to the currency not being tied to gold.
once the paper has no actual worth it can grow out of sync with items/gold
and once all the big guys were on to "worthless" paper money the world economy is safe from catastrophe
everybody knows that all the "0's" are worthless but we all treat them like they mean something.
we all complain about the debt:
what happens if the US says our debt is now zero...absolutely nothing
every country is running in debt, so if they all start over from zero again the debt will just rise again.
no country will ever pay it off and the other countries use the fake debt that the US and china owe them to buy goods and run the country.
it all just works because no one want to upset the apple cart, and if they wanted to what is the benefit?
the US gets a cold and the World get the flu, why would a country want to cause a economic disaster when the only country that could pull it out from a pure spending point is the currency that was devalued