Paper Gold?

For as long as Gold has been prized, there have been men who have tried to create it. For hundreds, if not thousands of years, the Alchemists strove to transmute base metals into Gold, without success. But even after its introduction to the West and the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg at the end of the Thirteenth century, no-one had the idea of trying to turn paper into Gold. In past centuries, those who would control money contented themselves with substituting paper for Gold, with limited success.

It took some true "visionaries", and the end result of a long process of economic wishful thinking, to seriously propose "paper gold". The notion goes back about 30 years, to the period just before the dawn of the "floating currencies" era. When the U.S. closed the the "Gold Window" in August 1971, the Dollar promptly dived against all its major trading partners. By February 1973, it had become impossible to pretend that any fixed ratio still existed between currencies, and the era of "floating currencies" began.

The IMF actually invented what became referred to as "Paper Gold" in 1971 - months before the U.S. severed the tie between the Dollar and Gold. The IMF knew this step was coming, and so it invented the "SDR" (Special Drawing Right). It was touted as a Reserve "Currency" that would replace both the U.S. Dollar and Gold in the basements of the world's Central Banks.
While these SDRs still exist, they have not done much over the past three decades or so except gather dust. Their prime purpose, to provide a substitute for Gold, was not fulfilled. The SDR was the last major attempt to provide a "substitute" for Gold. For at least the past two decades, the approach has been that no substitute for Gold is necessary. And to "prove it", Gold has been progressively debunked as either a money or even a viable investment option. The price has been forced down, then held down, then forced even lower.