Gold Standard Nirvana Around the Corner?

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- With World Bank president Robert Zoellick openly advocating a return to some kind of "gold standard," we got the expected flurry of knee-jerk opposition from the banker community. Among these tired, old refrains was the common myth that there is "not enough" gold (and/or silver) to back-stop an effective monetary system -- in our modern global economy.

For those who would like to visualize a different kind of global economy, let's see what a gold (or silver) standard would bring us. To start with, we must first separate fantasy from reality. The modern capitalist model, as Ben Bernanke tells us, is built upon permanent inflation (or, rather, infinite currency dilution). Such a world is 100% guaranteed to degenerate into a collection of debt-bloated Ponzi-schemes (like the U.S. is today) unless you believe the implicit premise behind this economic "order" which the bankers have foisted upon us: that we can have infinite growth in a finite system. Much like you can't grow a towering tree out of a small flower pot of soil, so too it is mathematically impossible for global economic growth to continue indefinitely. One by one, mature economies will see their growth naturally dwindle, approaching zero over the long term. This obvious concept should not frighten anyone except bankers (and the politicians who serve them). Keep in mind that if the $10's of trillions in ill-gotten gains which ultra-rich, global misers are hoarding was distributed around the world, we could already eliminate poverty. Thus, a zero-growth world (in the distant future) can be a world full of content, middle-class citizens -- with a gold standard being absolutely essential for such a stable, global society. Instead, we live in a world where economic growth has already started its inevitable slowdown, but in contrast, the bankers have goaded the weak-minded dolts who govern us into allowing even more money-printing, while we generate less and less real wealth (which is what gives fiat paper any value, at all). 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