During the classical gold standard, gold was the standard.  It was the money of the US Constitution.  So it was a goal for bankers to keep their private currency in parity with gold.  As soon as it wasn't, their currencies failed.  This was because gold was the standard.  And if they couldn't live up to that standard, no one would accept what they were calling money.
Banks would buy gold in order to keep their currency strong.

They would also create debt money, which would pay them interest.  This was the period of "free banking".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_banking

In many ways, Bitcoin is a system of free banking, which was the banking system credited with the most stable and productive trading environment in the last few centuries.  Bitcoin goes a few steps further though.  It is built on the foundation of internet peer-to-peer resiliency.

This is certainly true today.  We give a pass to government currency manipulators for all sorts of reason.  Historically it has commonly been to fund a war.  That's how we got greenbacks in the USA, so the civil war could be funded. 
When the drums of war started beating for World War 1, we got the Federal Reserve in the bargain.  Our current currency war includes the post 911 spending catastrophe winding down, with a sprinkling of new socialisms riding the wave.

Gold has been priced with strong stability through most all of the time it has been used as money up to the current day.  It has traded within a fairly narrow boundary with relation to other goods and services.  (the old trope of the price of a hand tailored suit of mens' clothes approximating one ounce of the stuff)
The Gold Standard, in the context of this discussion I am taking to mean, the attempt to link the value of a currency similarly. 

I don't think a Gold standard is likely to work in the same way with Bitcoins.  At least not in the current incarnation.  There will always be bitcoin destruction.  Passwords get lost, backups fail, data gets seized and stuck in a vault until it is forgotten.  And it is a finite commodity.  Programmatically predetermined to be finite.  It could work like gold in some ways, but not in others.
Currently bitcoins are approaching 1/10 an ounce of gold in value, but it remains a lot easier to spend gold than it is to spend Bitcoin.  This may not always be true.

These bitcoin days are similar to the days lost to history when gold was first discovered, mined, refined, coined.  It wasn't useful until folks figured out what it was, and decided they wanted some.  That is where we are today, very early days.

I've read this topic with interest, it has been a wide ranging discussion and at times a bit cantankerous.
The original question, posed in this forum, has always struck me at a bit of a gadfly.  Out of place, but worthy as a question nonetheless, even though the answer might be plain and simple.

One might as well inquire why there are no bitcoins in history to question that bitcoins can not succeed.
If we only look to history for our plans for innovation, we will have precious little of it.
Social systems arise through will, through agreement, and through force. 
We have new mechanisms for attaining agreement that didn't exist even one generation ago.
None of our parents met on the internet dating sites.
We are changing in ways, as a society, rapidly.  Be ready or be left behind.

What we have is a free market pricing.
There is utility to bitcoin that doesn't exist in gold.
It may be an interesting metric to look at as to the total net bitcoin/gold, but as to setting a price it may not be useful other than deciding whether an individual wants to buy or sell gold with their bitcoins.
(see my link below if you are interested in doing that)

There is also a nice article recently published in the Business Forum Journal that compares them:
http://www.bizforum.org/Journal/www_journalJVP011.htm

For example, Bitcoin is more useful as money than gold when we look at internet commerce, gold is more useful in other ways.  (You can make stuff out of it) The thing is though that other uses (inherent value) compete with its usefulness as money.  Bitcoin doesn't have that issue.

To your question, there are lots of reasons to buy gold during the classical gold standard period (such as the USA had pre 1913).  Even if you had confidence in the government's ability to have success in keeping the paper money at parity with gold price, it has a timeless quality, lustre, beauty and utility.  It was still the "good money" and everyone would prefer it to the paper, which is why the paper was what was in circulation.
It was the literal meaning of "Cold Hard Cash".

To your second question, this would not be the classical gold standard, but would be the flexible gold standard.
In today's world, we are likely only going to be able to achieve the flexible gold standard.

Roads are also more monitored and transparent than LR is/was. 
Cameras with OCR scanning licenses and shoot photos of speeders and red light runners.

Bitcoin is distinct in that the software includes transaction tracking and serialization so governments may use it for enforcement of their laws.  It arguably takes willful effort to create anonymity, which can be used to point to intent, or knowledge if these methods are uncommon.  Intent or knowledge being a prong in most criminal cases, and all of the really serious ones.

The foregoing is not to be construed as a legal opinion.

The stock market engages in KYC.  Accounts take taxpayer IDs etc.

Working less is not my goal.  Increasing the entertainment value of work, or the work value of entertainment would be a better goal.  Doing what you love to do and having that provide meaningful value to yourself and others is the way to be.

In other words, consider what you would do if you owned all your time, and do that.

Time cost averaging is a very good strategy for investing in volatile commodities with high beta, such as Bitcoin is currently.
It works even better than your example, (if we assume as you do that the time interval intersects with both 200 and 50).  The investment strategy works by using an equal amount of the buying currency (USD$ here) at discrete time intervals.
So for each share bought at 200, 4 would be bought at 50, making the average cost 400/5 or 80 each, rather than 125.

This is a built in strategy for all wage earners who are paid an equal amount per any given period of time.  If I am paid a salary in bitcoin/dollars, I will get more bitcoin on the weeks that the bitcoin price is low, and less when it is high.  


For the folks playing the "I want to win this argument game" in this forum.  We win when we all gain a better understanding, please waste less of our time.

That is why they want developers to have them.

So they can turn software like this:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/149623-mit-releases-open-source-software-that-reveals-invisible-motion-and-detail-in-video
http://people.csail.mit.edu/celiu/motionmag/motionmag.html
into real-time structural failure detection and lie-detection micro-expression capturing.

An active mind doesn't get bored.

I disagree, competition is not such a bad thing.  It sharpens the mind.
But if they were doing foul things with foul people, (alleged but yet to be proven) then putting them in the penalty box for a few rounds is just fine with me.
Anyone who gives "Liberty" a bad name can have a spanking.

Bring in the army of GPU miners using them for games.

Seriously though, marketing mining to the gamers is a great way to distribute infrastructure.  Then they get paid when they aren't gaming and get more social life, and can afford to go on better dates.   See, the marketing does itself!

The US Government is not a person, its about 22 million people, and doesn't think with one mind.  Not even close.
There are quite a few in that government that really love Bitcoin, imagine that!  Think again before you pretend to speak for that population, or for the population of Bitcoin users.

If you see it as a battle, it may be one of those battles that you win by giving in, unless you would prefer that the victory go to some successor of Bitcoin rather than Bitcoin.
Not being naive, we can assume that there are some that will make their personal quest to fight all government, flaunt the laws, and find themselves sharing bunks with the Liberty Reserve folks.  Then we will have another thread about whether and how that prosecution was "bad for Bitcoin".

This sort of prosecution IS bad, because it will scare honest law abiding folks away.  They do not want to be associated with criminals.  If in the hearts and minds of the common person Bitcoin is nothing but druggies, pedos and dissatisfied revolutionaries, then the average person will have nothing to do with it.

There is far less than 1% adoption.  We may not even have 1% awareness, and those that are aware, are reading news like this.  So consider well how your messages are heard by the world of people that may someday read them.

Thank you for clarifying.  It looks like we do agree on much, though we may have a different degree and scope of concern.
(I don't much care about wage disparity, for example, provided it is engaged in though voluntary negotiation)

In point of fact, am even looking to "back" Bitcoin with silver by accepting Bitcoin in trade for silver.    I just have to convert enough Bitcoin to fiat in order to pay the taxes, (which are minimal as I don't keep much on the trade in order to increase quantity).

You are correct that the Liberty Dollar was not illegal, and yet has caused much trouble for those that were involved.  I believe the Liberty Dollar case will prevail in the end (remember that BVNH has yet to be sentenced after more than two years).  Nevertheless, it remains a cautionary tale.  That case is fundamental to how and why I have to operate in the way that I do with offering the NEW LIBERTY DOLLAR.  It took a very deep study of that case, reading all the testimony and evidence, and LOTs of lawyer time.  
The laws on the books prevent STATES from issuing competing currencies.  They do not prevent barter, or the Article 1 right to contract.
Bitcoin is really very easy to use legally.  All the accounting is kept for you in perpetuity in the block chain and this provides legitimate business with the best backup of irrefutable accounting records yet devised.
So yes, you can declare the income from appreciation when sold, just like you might do for a stock sale.  
There can be some very easy ways around the problems.  I predict that as it grows it will become much easier to comply with the basic laws, addons to accounting software to automatically pull your records from the block chain and do your taxes more easily than ever before.  I am almost surprised that it hasn't already been done.  It would be a quick programming job and would benefit the community tremendously, and the programming team tremendously x2.

I don't claim to know what they are guilty of, if anything, and quite surprised if you do.  I am merely looking at what is alleged.  The US has a 4th Amendment which offers privacy protections against unreasonable search and seizure.  Not being qualified at all to judge whether this constitutes a reasonable search or not, I merely offer that IF what is alleged is accurate, willful complicity with ongoing criminal activity, then a little sunshine might disinfect.  I don't know the answer to what is happening to them and don't see it as a good thing on any level.  If it is true, I have done enough work for RAINN.org charity to understand the damage that child pornography can cause to victims, and would be very OK to have a good bit less of that happening.

For those of us who do not commit crimes with Bitcoins and use them for the fostering of legitimate business activity, and pay our taxes, and etc.  The accountability features of Bitcoins are more advantageous than the potential anonymity features.  Your mileage may vary.

I may not agree with all the laws, but I still must abide by them.
Fortunately, being very careful to not be engaging in any criminal activity allows for a good defense against probable cause for search, and so also protects my customers from this sort of seizure.  Like it or not, white market operations are bulk of the future of Bitcoin, if it is going to have a future.  If you sleep with dogs, you had better have a pretty damn good flea collar.  

I am also not one that is rooting for any systemic collapse of any economy.  The resulting human suffering is not worth ANY amount of personal gain I may have through my own economic resilience.  Big changes have big social cost and strain the ethical tolerance of the people that suffer under those changes.  Who want's to rule the ashes of a fallen society?  I would much rather see our little experiment continue, thrive and grow.  The more it is used for good, the better chance that has of happening.

AND, Bitcoin is such a good.  Technologies such as this that create common interests among people across government borders is one of the factors that helps prevent war and conflict between the governments that hold power.  People don't start wars, governments do.  So when there are people doing mutually beneficial business with those across borders, they can each put influences on their respective governments to NOT engage in hostilities and have a built in incentive to do just that.

I for one have been both entertained and enlightened by the erudite (if occasionally irritating) and authoritative responses along with the liberal sprinkling of references, so thank you all for your engagement in responding to my honest question regarding the particulars of what elements engender societal voluntarism.

Add this to the fact that government money goes first to the government employees, and banks and contractors.  They get it before inflation's effect.  Once they spend it into the economy and the rest of us get hands on it, it is post-inflationary.

The onset of inflation is often rapid and changing monetary policy is not fast nor often is it rapid in effect, in the USA:

Right, that was basically my point, you shouldn't.  But it is a part of the counter-party risk of using any institution.  Closing the shop peremptorily strikes me as a misplay of the interests of justice, unless the authority was being stonewalled and had no other choice.
Once the authority gets evidence, they can either go for the selective fire, or the carpet bombing, but the selective fire typically will take the compliance of the leadership of the organization.
Once they get stonewalled, they have fewer choices.

This is complicated by the forfeiture laws, which can give seized wealth to the prosecuting authorities organization and lead to big career advancements for the government employees who capture it.  The forfeiture laws lead to much sloppy law enforcement.

Not sure if it is a plus or a minus.  There is a lot of room for competition, but if they are guilty of something bad enough, maybe it is good that they are stopped?  Bitcoin and all the other alternative currencies put together are still a very very small fraction of the marketplace.