For instance, if you have a country that already has a lot of Commodity XYZ and it's particularly enamored with it as much as we are, us anchoring our currency to it doesn't give us a lot of trade leverage.
Trade leverage? Gold doesn't have much intrinsic value, other than that the world gold supply is a relative constant. The majority of found gold was found about 5000 years ago. The California gold rush was a drop in the bucket compared to what had already been found.
So what is the value of a relative constant? Your butcher might ask you that; if you go to make a purchase, and you catch him with his thumb on the scale.
What leverage do you have when someone offers you a valuable tangible commodity; and you offer an IOU in return; even as the person who is offering the commodity know that you have written more IOUs than you can pay in your lifetime?
If you look at long term historical charts, the price of gold and the price of oil have had traded for a relative fixed ratio, measured in dollars. At the same time the rise in price of those commodities over long term historical charts, in relative terms, is directly proportional to inflation. We might see the price of oil drop in the not so distant future, as EVs and solar panels, replace the need for oil; but one can still trade gold for the silver that is needed to manufacture those products.
Fiat currencies have historically migrated to their intrinsic value of zero.
“Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value, zero.” -- Voltaire (1694-1778)
If the scenario I was worried about was some sort of Thunderdome apocalyptic total global economic collapse, then I'd be more interested in accumulating clean water and bullets than I would be a shiny piece of metal that I can't eat or drink and that offers no practical use.
Gold is simply wealth. Everything of any value comes down to the time that it takes to collect it, or create it. An increment of your time, is a portion of your life. I place great value on that time; and I prefer to store it in tangible assets over investing it in bad debt.
That said, living is dependent on food, water, and shelter. Bullets are good for gathering food, or defending food, when the trucks stop rolling, and the police aren't getting paid.
I would be reluctant to give up my lead, for gold, if there was no food and no police. You would have to offer me far much more gold, than you would once the trucks started rolling, and the police started getting paid again. Gold is good for storing wealth for when trade is restored with law and order.
Having all of your eggs in one basket is riskier by nature of just that, having everything invested in one avenue (whether it's gold backed or not). When the gold seizure happened under FDR, people having their savings invested in gold (and gold backed currencies) didn't offer much protection against authoritarianism.
FDR worked with bankers to steal that Constitutional money from the American people.
Article I Legislative Branch
Section 10 Powers Denied States
- Clause 1 Proscribed Powers
- No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President, letter to Col. Edward Mandell House (21 November 1933); as quoted in F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928-1945, edited by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), pg. 373
Not everyone turned in their gold. Now that gold is legal again (so much for the Constitution in the mean time) you can buy those pre-FDR coins today.
In fact, fiat currency makes it easier for thieves to steal your wealth.
"Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money and control credit, and with a flick of a pen they will create enough to buy it back." -- Sir Josiah Stamp, former President, Bank of England