In the late 70s, in the midst of a dollar crisis...it was clear what was needed

Clarity is coming on the unattractiveness of "paper"


http://www.laffercenter.com/1979/10/a-return-to-convertibility/

A Return To Convertibility
Tuesday, October 30th, 1979

Making the Dollar ‘as Good as Gold’

By Arthur B. Laffer

L.A. Times 10/30/79

The events of the past several weeks have served to make interest rates, reserve requirements and money supply targets of cocktail talk at all proper meeting places. What appears to be missing, however, is any serious discussion of a word understood by virtually everyone: gold. In my view, any successful solution to the monetary crises occurring at ever-more frequent intervals must include a reestablishing of dollar convertibility. Historically, convertibility of a currency has been into gold.




this is why those with grey hair get it...because it's not that new.

In 1977
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/29522/jahangir-amuzegar/opec-and-the-dollar-dilemma
...
OPEC's worries about the continued erosion of its purchasing power, and the market's fears about the oil exporters' reactions, have been both serious and real. Between January 1977 (when the crude oil price was last raised) and April 1978 (when the dollar showed faint signs of stabilization), the U.S. currency depreciated by more than 22 percent against the Swiss franc, 21.5 percent against the Japanese yen, nearly 14 percent against the deutsche mark, 10 percent against the pound sterling, some 6 percent against the French franc, and even a small 3 percent vis-à-vis the Italian lira. While the decline of the U.S. dollar over a 21-month period, weighted in terms of U.S. trade, was much less than these figures might indicate1 - actually, only 7.5 percent - the damaging impact on OPEC as a whole, and particularly on some of its members, was considerable...