What would happen if we all went to the bank and asked for our money's worth in gold?

The UK left the gold standard in 1931 when a certain Winston Churchill was chancellor, so it's not Gordon's fault.

The gold standard meant that the amount of cash in circulation had to be equal to the value of gold held by the Bank of England. Theoretically you could go to the B of E and ask for your gold but it never worked like that.

Modern fiscal policies try to keep a tight reign on the amount of cash in the system but we have far more cash than we have gold deposited, and banks can loan up to 7 times the amount of cash they hold on deposit, which is a far more worrying statistic.

There is only about 5 billion ounces of mined gold in the world so the banks would actually love to do this. Anybody with more than $800 or so would be screwed cause that's all they could get.

I read once that to go back on gold standard, gold would have to be $40,000. per ounce.

But they are not allowed or required to do this so it doesn't matter.

They would say, if they wanted to be truthful - "Look the economy is a joke as there is not enough Gold in our Bank to cover the actual amount of money in current circulation" - "The economy is a system to keep the stupids (i.e. Human Beings who actually believe that money is real) under control"...

They would also remind us of the fact that the reason why the Matrix in the movie is green, is that the colour of money is green...

Wake up NEO, you are a slave (to Money) living in a dream-world!

Great Britain would go bankrupt! Labour sold off a lot of our gold a few years ago,but the note does promise to pay you that amount in gold if you took it to them.

Stupid thing to have on a bank note anyway, but if I asked for my wealth in gold it wouldn't even register on the scale it'd be so small. I'm happy, though, so no matter!

The economy does not, I repeat, the economy does not exchange gold for products. You can not purchase any goods with gold, it has to be devalued or broken down into pennies,dimes,nickles and quarters then it must be built up into paper notes that can be recognized in face value etc.,etc.

They would laugh at you. The U.S. Dollar is backed by a promise. In earlier days it was backed by silver or gold, but your currency would have to be either a silver or gold certificate, which are collectibles now.

They wouldn't be able to, we are long since a Gold standard country. Gordon Brown sold our Gold to buy Euros when that currency got in to difficulties a few years back. Good innit my old china?

They took that off the money a long time ago..
You can still withdraw your money and buy gold if you wish..
The dollar & the euro are both falling to pieces.

P

that would be good but bank note say(promise to pay bearer an IOU.