Calls for a return to gold standard are in vogue these days. Tying the value of the dollar and other currencies to the precious metal is considered a monetary salve that will soothe the economic ills that harass us. It’s an idea whose time has come…again, we’re told. The World Bank’s president last week suggested that the world should embrace, in part, a gold-based monetary system. And in yesterday’s New York Times, financial writer James Grant eloquently pined for the gold standard of yore. “The classical gold standard, the one that was in place from 1880 to 1914, is what the world needs now,” he writes.