Are We Being Conned About Gold Confiscation?
Doug Hornig, August 7th, 2009
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By Doug Hornig, Editor, Casey's Gold & Resource Report
There's a lot of Internet chatter these days about the possibility of the U.S. government seizing its citizens' private gold holdings.
What are the chances?
Well, it's always good to bear in mind that there is no telling what the government might do. It's already doing things that were unthinkable just a few years ago. If President Obama believes there is political hay to be made from seizing your gold - or even if he sincerely thinks such a move would be "good for the country" - we're sure he won't hesitate to make the grab. After all, his favorite predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt, set the precedent.
Many Americans don't even realize that private gold ownership was forbidden for forty years, but it was. The relevant edict is Presidential Executive Order 6102 of April 5, 1933, which begins:
Forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion and Gold Certificates By virtue of the authority vested in me by Section 5(b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended by Section 2 of the Act of March 9, 1933, entitled
An Act to provide relief in the existing national emergency in banking, and for other purposes,
in which amendatory Act Congress declared that a serious emergency exists,
I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do declare that said national emergency still continues to exist and pursuant to said section to do hereby prohibit the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States by individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations ...
There was, of course, no constitutional peg on which to hang such an outrageous crime against the people, so FDR decided to fall back on the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, which he claimed gave him the authority to do this in order to prevent gold from falling into the "wrong" hands. If that seems a flimsy argument, it is.
But it echoes eerily today. How much of our personal freedom have we already been asked to sacrifice to the Forever War on Terrorism? And note also the reference to an "existing national emergency in banking" that requires extreme measures. Sound familiar?
So, no question that Obama could follow in the footsteps of his mentor, if he wanted to. That said, though, the likelihood of a new gold confiscation is remote, for a number of reasons.
2009 is not 1933. Back then, the money supply was constrained by the gold standard. As Roosevelt concocted the New Deal, he ran smack up against that wall. He needed more money than he had, couldn't raise taxes in a depression, and couldn't print dollars that weren't gold-backed.
