The US govmt already acquired most of the gold in our country by requiring(under penalty of imprisonment) that all US citizens turn all gold coin and bullion into the federal reserve, at very minimal compensation i might ad. but that's beside the point, the solution to change back to a gold standard, would be to lower the dollar amount in circulation causing deflation. sure there would be less money around, but due to deflation, the value of the individual dollar would go up and prices would go down. And since we as americans still count and price to the last red cent i don't think people would have a problem paying 25 cents for a double cheeseburger at mcdonalds instead of a dollar(granted that future 25 cents is equal in relative value to the current dollar) i mainly brought that up as a convenience factor for counting out a little change(we do it already anyway) You may be wondering how the value of the individual dollar would increase while prices decrease. we'll use a mathematical formula on a small scale for this. seeing as there is a finite amount of gold on the planet and an infinite amount of currency(any country can always print more money) for a gold standard you divide the amount of gold owned by the country's economy regulating institution(federal reserve, national bank, etc) by the total dollar amount in circulation. for this example, lets say the we only have 100 ounces of gold and 1000 dollars, each dollar is worth .10 ounce of gold. Now lets burn half the money(take it out of circulation) we still have 100ounces of gold, but only 500 dollars, the value of each dollar is now .50 ounce of gold. thus each dollar has now increased in its individual value. Now to answer why prices would drop, to do this we need to go all the down to the original manufacturer/purveyor of raw materials for any product in any industry. The original purveyor needs to sell their raw materials to the next person in the chain to refine/manufacture to the next stage of production. Since there are fewer dollars around(but with greater value on the gold standard) the next person in the chain(refiner/manufacturer) must purchase the raw materials for a lower dollar amount. the original purveyor must make a decision, sell for the lower dollar amount(keep in mind each dollar now has greater individual dollar) or not sell at all and go out of business. so he sells for the lower dollar amount. the third person up the chain needs to buy the refined/manufactured materials or product from the second person in the chain to either sell( if product is finished) or further refine or manufacture( if product is not at finished state). Again, with fewer dollars in circulation(but with greater individual value), the third person must purchase product at a lower dollar amount. And again, the person below them in the chain must either sell for the lower dollar amount or go out of business. they sell for the lower dollaramount. and so up the chain it goes until it reaches the consumer resulting in a lower price. You can apply this to ANY industry(energy, oil, agriculture,food service, etc).
Gold, even at it lowest price, is still quite valuable, and usually tends not to have dramatic value decreases. the price of Gold, being a finite resource, is primarily driven by the market. The market being made up of individuals (in this case usually rather wealthy individuals). The individuals are usually willing to pay a handsome price for gold. the market price (loosely the average price of all sales of that product at that time) will normally stay high, as the individuals purchasing gold generally will pay a high price for gold, as it is valued quite highly.
Now of course this wouldn't be an overnight deal, nothing with massive economies is(except sever depressions), I think we would see a much quicker improvement in our economy than sticking with the current fiat system.
