Commodity money as a theoretical backing for federally issued "gold certificates" to substitute for the gold. Between 1933 and 1970 (when the U.S. officially left the gold standard), one U.S. dollar was technically worth exactly 1/35 of a troy ounce (889 mg) of gold. However, actual trade in gold bullion as a precious metal within the United States was banned after 1933, with the explicit purpose of preventing the "hoarding" of private gold during an economic depression period in which maximal circulation of money was desired by influential economists. This was a fairly typical transition from commodity to representative to fiat money,
What Has Government Done to Our Money? paper money that exists today started as a receipt for a fixed weight or portion of some commodity, usually a precious metal. When a commodity becomes a money, it gains new properties unique to being a money. For example, unlike every other commodity, money becomes less useful during the time its supply is expanded, roughly to the degree to which it is expanded, all other things being equal. To illustrate: If the Monee Tree dropped five new Moneez into the economy tomorrow, the effect would be zero. But, if the Monee Tree dropped one thousand trillion Moneez into the economy