Author: A gold standard is 'a very impractical way to run a modern economy

The United States abandoned the gold standard for the dollar in 1971; President Donald Trump advocates for a return to it. Journalist James Ledbetter argues in his book “One Nation Under Gold” that "many of the worst economic catastrophes that have happened in American history happened when we were on a gold standard," he told NPR.

He told Doc Thompson on Thursday's "Glenn" about all the places the U.S. is known to store gold -- and all the mysteries surrounding it. He said that although he is "not a purveyor of conspiracy theories," the facts surrounding gold in America show "lots of things are possible."

Ledbetter disclosed the "fishy" tale of former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1933 buy up of Americans' gold and strange documentation choices by the government. The U.S. also flew "tons and tons" of unweighed gold  in 1967 from Fort Knox to the United Kingdom, which was panicked over the devaluation of the pound.

He said that gold is a "very impractical way to run a modern economy," what with the expense of finding it, getting it out of the ground, and storing it -- not to mention the government's unexplained transportation history of the precious metal.

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