Why aren't we tagging all our currencies back to gold?
138878
Because there is not enough stored gold to guarantee the value of the currency in circulation. That is why the US went to the silver standard. Then we found out that there is not enough silver to guarantee the value of the currency in circulation. That is why US currency is now backed by "the full faith and credit of the United States."
848542
The odds are you will spend much more to recover the tiny amount of gold on that necklace than the value of what you recover.\n\nThe plating on gold plated items is very thin and the chemicals used to recover it are very expensive. In order to turn a profit one must run large quantities of recovery materials. The process is very dangerous, even life threatening, so I do not reccommend you attempt this type of gold recovery. I've done it only to be disappointed with my results.
367339
easy convertibility to any other currencies in the fex market, mainly-usd,gbp,euro
1002836
We have been doing this since we de-coupled the dollar from gold in 1971.  Actually, to be accurate, the private bank called the Federal Reserve has been doing this.  When they set interest rates low, more dollars are borrowed, meaning more dollars are needed to be put in the system, so they order it up from the Treasury and print away.\n\nIf you compare the price of precious metals and real estate, two items that have fixed "value" unless something big and artificial happens to them, then you will notice that they have increased in value almost 1.5x since Bush took office.  We have had inflation of nearly 50% in the last 4-5 years.  The Fed stopped making public knowledge the M3 indicator two months ago, which is the number of dollars in circulation in the world.  This was another trick to curb inflation...if nobody knows how many dollars there are, they can't adjust the rate of exchange based on any hard number anymore.
419109
I don't remember the ordering, but there's probably some metal out there that won't react?  Gold, maybe?  For regular metal, that sounds a bit iffy.
583455
gold prices are not bound to come down anywhere in the world..even in the US.\n\nso long dollar was the reserve currency of many countries..as dollar begins to depreciate against major currency[the reason we all know] governments are moving to more stable form of investment\n\ntime and over gold is proved to be a gold metal for investment.. \n\ncurrent sources point that japnese govts and many other asian govts are investing heavily in gold, causing the price to sky rocket\n\nyes they wil come down , when we start to find another stable currency
244798
The real value of any currency is measured by checking it against the price of gold in that currency.  This is the only litmus test of real wealth that can be easily measured.  As of right now $1.00 is worth 1/545 of an ounce of gold.  \n\nAnother way to check was with something called the M3 index, which is just a count of all the US currency in circulation and in reserve in the world, but the Treasury Department just recently stopped reporting that number presumably so nobody would panic when the dollar gets wasted in the world economy soon.
694901
As one of my finance professors so clearly stated it... "In God We Trust".  It is on every piece of paper and coin in the US.  There is no backing or "gold standard" of the almighty dollar anymore.  It is really just a highly accepted form of trade for a common tool for bartering.
959476
Because the paper money is printed on, is totally worthless.  THe money is representative of gold stored in US treasury vaults.  If the money is not backed by an equal value of gold, it becomes worthless.\n\nThe mexican's tried something similar with the Peso. \n\nIf you print more money than you have the gold to back up, the money itself becomes worthless.
552536
If you are flagged in one system, you are probably flagged in all the systems no matter what kind the bank uses.  Sorry.
397508
The others have provided links.  If you mean the actual currency, most banks will do it for you for bills.  I don't know of many places that will convert foreign coins, though.
631033
Since gold coins are almost always priced at a premium to the price of gold bullion, they can easily be sold to coin dealers/collectors.  Look on the phone Yellow Pages for Coin Dealers and speak to them.
773541
Of course I do.  The government is in the business of borrowing money is very large quantities.  So it is to their benefit to make certain that the value of the dollar steadily drops so that they can pay back those mammoth borrowings with dollars that are worth much less than when they borrowed them.  Stick around.  Ten years from now that $20 gold piece will probably be trading for about $2000 or more.
603150
We have different currencies because countries wish to maintain control of their own finances. The state of the  national currency is an important part of a nation's sovereign power.\n\nHow it works is really simple in principle. Currency is just another commodity for which people have varying needs and for which they are willing to pay varying amounts. Absent currency controls the value of a dollar, euro, yen or whatever is determined by what amount of other currencies people are willing to pay for them.
1036667
Because money printed has to be backed by something else of value, like gold. Otherwise the money is worthless. It's the same reason that the U.S. mint doesn't print enough money to simply give everyone one billion dollars. They wouldn't be backed by anything and a jug of milk would cost a billion dollars.
320831
LOL with Gold at $632 an ounce HELL YEAH!  Its skyrocketing!  So is Silver.  Go buy silver coins from the coin store and hold on to them for a few years, they will be worth ALOT later!  I bought 100 one ounce coins about 2-3 years ago when silver was only $5.60 an ounce...now its $12.95 and ounce and growing higher with gold.  Im buying more up every few months.
321020
its the unstable US dollar, its the world currency, if the US economy stumbles then other countries need something to bank upon thats why gold prices are increasing, and oil prices please ask Mr Bush!!!!