If paper money was banned & silver & gold came back, what would happen?

[Jenny A]

Anyone who owed anyone anything would be in deep trouble as the dollars necessary to pay off the debt would cost more than the dollars borrowed. Both home owners and the U.S. government, not to mention small businessmen who rely on operating loans, would be in deep shit.

That is to say, pretty much everyone, except the homeless - and they'd pretty much be screwed by virtue of depending on the charity of others - who are also broke.

So who does benefit? Those who control the supply, like always.

I don't think much of anyone benefited from The Great Depression.

If we switched to a gold standard or worse yet to actual gold coinage, those who either had gold or the ability to mine gold would benefit. But that's an awfully small number of people.