>worked well enough for this country for hundreds of years. If I remember my numbers from an economics course right, from 1776-1912, there were major runs on b

>worked well enough for this country for hundreds of years. If I remember my numbers from an economics course right, from 1776-1912, there were major runs on banks in the US an average of every 12 years. While the US didn't leave the gold standard until 1933, the fed, after it learned not to drastically raise interest rates quickly in 1929, has kept things pretty stable for almost a century.