Exactly 40 years ago Monday, the U.S. dollar formally became a fiat currency, as then-President Richard Nixon “closed the gold window” and ended the greenback’s precious-metal guarantee. And though a market price for the dollar was soon accepted as the new normal, the debate over a return to the gold standard has now resurfaced in a way we haven’t seen in the four decades since. Many practical hurdles to a gold dollar exist — most significantly the tremendous difficulty in defending a metal-backed currency, even if the new gold standard opened with a major devaluation for the U.S. unit. But putting that aside, the ... (full story)