I have been arguing that the dollar is not backed by nothing, it is backed by "the full faith and credit of the United States," faith that the U.S. government will continue to extract taxes from it's subjects, whose labor creates the real value that the dollars represent. It's why the 16th Amendment allowing the government to tax incomes was also passed in 1913, the same year the Federal Reserve was created; the two go hand in hand. The taxes prop up the U.S. government, of course, as well as the dollar. If U.S. subjects stopped paying taxes, both would collapse.