"Dollar" - The Name and Usage
The word "dollar" was historically associated with silver coins, not gold. Here are a couple of citations.
The word "dollar" is derived from Low Saxon "daler", an abbreviation of "Joachimsdaler" – (coin) from Joachimstal – so called because it was minted from 1519 onwards using silver extracted from a mine which had opened in 1516 near Joachimstal, a town in the Ore Mountains of northwestern Bohemia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History..._States_dollar
The weight of silver in the dollar coins varied widely over time and place; the earliest "taler" (sometimes "thaler") coins (in Scandinavian countries "daler") were about 8 grams, the Spanish created the milled "dollar" with the edge reeds to prevent scraping of the edges; and the first US dollar was about one ounce - 31 grams more or less. The Hanseatic League who were businessmen of northern Europe settled their accounts using the silver coinage and this spread down to Spain and over to the new country - the north American states.
http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/dollar.html
Douglas Gnazzo wrote a five part series in 2005 that says basically that silver is the lawful money of the states and gold was only priced in relationship to silver.
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/ed...5/silver1.html
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/ed...5/silver2.html
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/ed...5/silver3.html
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/ed...5/silver4.html
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/ed...5/silver5.html
Here is a little thing I have been repeating lately; "Paper money cannot hold value, paper money can only serve as a title instrument or warehouse receipt describing where the value is held."
Credit instruments based upon unbacked paper are then given value by the people who back it with their products and their intellectual and physical labor. The people become the final creditors when the banks fail to back the credit entries. Compare to this Barefoot Bob piece:
http://www.barefootsworld.net/usfraud.html
Levi Philos