Fiction: A gold backed currency is the answer to the problems with the dollar and inflation, or any other fiat currency.

Political opinions follow:
It appears at first glance that locking a currency value to an amount of gold is a great way to limit the ability of government or central banks to print too much money and create inflation, and of course there's some truth to that... and a partial truth can be very dangerous.

1. The primary economic point, and based on the definition of inflation and deflation is since there's a very limited total amount of gold on Earth and there's virtually no limit to how much man can produce (as witness the huge standard of living increase in the last 100 years), the amount of production would either have to be limited to the amount of gold available OR the value of gold would have to increase every year to keep up with production levels.
2. The idea of course is to keep the dollar or any currency at a stable value.... and guess who own 25-50% of the gold on Earth - central banks and world banking organizations. They would get rewarded for doing almost nothing, which isn't our idea of fair.
3. If nothing was done, and the currency increased in value on a regular basis, why would someone invest in something to raise the standard of living when by doing nothing and holding the currency, it gets more valuable every year? Sure, there would be some investing going on but it sure would severely lower the incentive if doing nothing paid well.
4. Better than a gold or silver backed currency is a constitutional amendment, along with at the very least removing the Federal Reserve Banks from private hands.
5. "The greatest error of the money supply being fixed to the gold standard, was that the discovery of gold determined the supply of money altering policies of government and subjecting the private sector to swings in the boom and bust sense that would be influenced with respect to amplitude incresing volatility. We can see such periods following the Gold Rush of 1849 in California and the consequences of the deliberate inflation created by the 'Silver Democrats' that led to virtual bank¬ruptcy requiring J.P. Morgan to bail out the government in 1896."
   -- Martin Armstrong, "Its just time" page 69

Also see William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech from 1896 when the country was still on a gold standard, as well as an article by Ben Bernanke, Money, Gold, and the Great Depression. Another fine article in the area - Production: The True Money Standard

"If you don't trust gold, do you trust the logic of taking a beautiful pine tree, worth about $4,000 - $5,000, cutting it up, turning it into pulp and then paper, putting some ink on it and then calling it one billion dollars?"
-- Kenneth J. Gerbino, investment manager