sth,

In his interviews, Mr. Rickards suggests that the global monetary system will likely move to an IMF Special-Drawing-Rights-based system, and once that fails, to a global gold-standard monetary system.

I wonder whether a plain-vanilla gold-standard monetary system would work. There would need to be a system for transferring gold (or assigning and reassiging ownership of gold) between countries to resolve current account deficits and surpluses. Absent such a gold transfer system, certain countries would continue to pursue mercantilist policies by undervaluing their currencies and hollowing out the economies of their trade partners. Such mercantilist policies would invite competitive currency devaluations by countries, which we see now.

From your reading of Currency Wars, does Mr. Rickards discuss the inclusion of gold as a component of the SDR basket of currencies? (A benefit of an SDR-based monetary system would be that on a regular basis, the IMF could re-weight currencies in the basket of currencies to erase current account surpluses and deficits; a country with a current account surplus would see its currency weighting increase, and a country with a current account deficit would see its currency weighting decrease).

With best regards.

Old School