One of the references in the original article led me to this, which is interesting. Rogoff is a famous economist, former chief IMF economist, educator and author. This is quite surprising to me to hear this from him.

From a mostly anti-gold source:

 https://www.ft.com/content/8174208e-21bb-11e6-9d4d-c11776a5124d

 And from a mostly pro-gold source    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-23/buy-gold-%E2%80%9Cextremel...

And the source of the full article from Rogoff himself. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/gold-as-emerging-market...

I agree with Rogoff that we do not want a gold standard (for reasons other than the ones he provides). What I do want is for the US to recognize gold and silver as constitutional money and therefore not have any taxes levied against it (as in gains/losses when sold for fiat dollars). Then any individual can have their very own gold standard if they prefer. Of course our government will never want that because if the USD ever faltered in confidence.............. well it would be a bad thing for central banks legitimacy. By attaching taxes to any inflation gain, the government gets its inflation pound of flesh even if the dollar is debased.

A key comment from the article:

"Emerging markets hold reserves because they do not have the luxury of being able to inflate their way out of a financial crunch or a government debt crisis."

Inflation of the fiat money supply is a tax on anyone holding said money.

John