How would it be possible to go back to the gold standard? Doesnt that mean that for each dollar there would have to be a certain amount of real gold to back it up? But they made away with that rule decades ago, is it remotely possible to go back to it now? Anyone have any good URLs on this?

I think the best proposal I've heard is to offer a gold and silver currency as an option to the current Fed paper money. This would allow people to choose which currency they'd prefer. I believe you could back every dollar with gold, but it would be worth significantly less than a dollar worth of gold would be worth twenty years ago. The problem is the circulation of money is too great, so worth of the dollar against gold is too little and will continue to drop as long as there's nothing backing it.

To put it into perspective, a nickel's worth in 1913 (before we lost our gold standard) would buy a dollar's worth today.

Its fascinating that the current system works (well maybe it doesnt after all considering the recent development). I remember watching http://www.videosift.com/video/What-is-money and thinking how weird it is that there is nothing solid behind it all...
About the proposal, can it be found online somewhere with more info

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