Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/158

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

1. Summary of the Plan

The plan, as set forth in the last chapter, is in brief:

(1) To abolish gold coins and to convert our present gold certificates into "gold bullion dollar certificates" entitling the holder, on any date, to dollars of gold bullion of such weight as may be officially declared to constitute a dollar for that date.

(2) To retain the "free coinage," i.e. to be more exact, the unrestricted deposit, of gold, and to retain also the unrestricted redemption of gold bullion dollar certificates.

(3) To designate an ideal composite or "goods-dollar," consisting of a representative assortment of commodities, worth, at the outset, a gold dollar of the present weight, and to establish an "index number" for recording, at stated times, the market price of this ideal goods-dollar in terms of the gold bullion dollar.

(4) To adjust the weight of the dollar (i.e. the gold bullion dollar) at stated intervals, each adjustment to be proportioned to the recorded deviation of the index number from par.

(5) To impose a small "brassage" fee for the deposit of gold bullion and provide that no one change in the bullion dollar's weight shall exceed that fee.

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