There are stupid people, really stupid people, and then there is this fucking moron:
When I say fucking moron I mean the “economist” the reporter is quoting in case that wasn’t obvious. If you don’t know what gold is backed by I’m here to inform, gold is backed by itself. Although people often get caught up in the concept of the “gold standard” what supporters actually mean is a commodity based money. Gold has traditionally been the commodity chosen to act as money due to many qualities including is scarcity, easy divisibility, durability, and actual use in the manufacture of other goods. Gold could easily be replaced by any other commodity so long as it’s generally accepted as the common good of trade.
United States dollars on the other hand are basically backed by a bunch of well armed thugs who claim it’s worth to be the supposed full faith and credit of their organization. Of course that very organization is tens of trillions of dollars in debt so I’m not sure what faith or credit they have remaining.
When somebody talks about a commodity backed money they mean each monetary unit is actually a receipt for a physical good stored elsewhere (unless the actual physical good is being used). For example if the dollar were a gold back currency each dollar would be set as being worth a certain weight in gold. When you went to the bank you could convert your paper receipts into their physical value of the backing commodity.
The United States dollar is a fiat currency meaning there is no physical commodity backing it. It’s basically only worth what others are willing to recognized it for. If foreign countries are no longer willing to recognized the value of the paper dollar then the dollar literally has no actual value.