April 5, 1933, "A date that will live in infamy"--FDR/Morgenthau confiscate gold from unwary American public . Yes, it was exactly 90 years ago
I remember reading in Coin World several decades ago that many coin dealers at the time didn't know the import of the gold confiscation re "numismatic gold items" that was an exemption. So they just sat on all of their gold coin holdings, rare or not--and profited, as no one hassled them about it and US Treasury officialdom soon raised the price from $20.22 to $35.00. The big losers were those who turned in gold coins at the old price.
"Yesterday (April 5) marked the anniversary 0f the signing of Executive Order 6102 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was touted as a measure to stop gold hoarding, but it was in reality, an attempt to remove gold from public hands.
Many people refer to EO-6102 as a gold confiscation order. But confiscation is probably not the best word for what happened in practice.
The order required private citizens, partnerships, associations and corporations to turn in all but small amounts of gold to the Federal Reserve in exchange for $20.67 per ounce.
The executive order was one of several steps Roosevelt took toward ending the gold standard in the US.
With the dollar tied to gold, the Federal Reserve found it difficult to increase the money supply during the Great Depression. It couldn’t simply fire up the printing press as it can today. The Federal Reserve Act required all notes to have 40% gold backing. But the Fed was low on gold and up against the limit. By enticing the public to give up its gold, the Fed was able to boost its own gold holdings and create more dollars.
EO 6102 followed on the heels of an order Roosevelt issued just weeks before prohibiting banks from paying out or exporting gold. Just two months after the enactment of EO 6102, the US effectively went off the gold standard when Congress enacted a joint resolution erasing the right of creditors to demand payment in gold. Then, in 1934, the government’s fixed price for gold was increased to $35 per ounce. This effectively increased the value of gold on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet by 69%. By increasing its gold stores through the confiscation of private gold holdings, and declaring a higher exchange rate, the Fed could circulate more notes. In effect, the hoarding of gold by the government allowed it to inflate the money supply.
President Richard Nixon put the final nail in the coffin when he slammed the “gold window” shut in 1971, severing the last ties the dollar had to gold. Nixon uncoupled gold from its fixed $35 price and suspended the convertibility of dollars into gold by foreign governments and central banks.
Today, the Fed doesn’t have to worry about backing its notes with gold. It can increase the money supply with no restraints at all, thanks to the efforts of Roosevelt and Nixon.
When he announced the closing of the gold window, Nixon said, “Let me lay to rest the bugaboo of what is called devaluation,” and promised, “Your dollar will be worth just as much as it is today.”
This was a lie.
According to data released by the Bureau Labor of Statistics, the dollar has lost more than 80% of its value since Nixon’s fateful decision. Meanwhile, the dollar value of gold has gone from $35 an ounce to over $2,000."
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The scum in DC will gladly do it again, and this time they'll send out jack-booted thugs from BATF and IRS to collect it.
That will be the moment of Unintended Consequences and mark the end of BATF and IRS.
2619
Dec 12, 2018 7:01:15 PM EST
Q !!mG7VJxZNCI ID: 089200 No. 4281049
Dec 12, 2018 6:57:57 PM EST
Anonymous ID: 376ff2 No. 4280876
>>4280189
Q: Do we have the GOLD?
>>4280876
Yes.
GOLD shall destroy FED.
Q
The only precious metal these thieves would get from me is hot lead.
Is this where FDR made himself chancellor of America, since Hitler was made chancellor of Germany two months prior?
This is perfect evidence of an omnipotent hidden oligarchy, and this oligarchy is losing their fear of being seen/felt. Everyone should see this as the first step in totalitarianism.
Tricky Dicky was a Republican.
Me dino just felt moved to point that out.
So, for the next few years, I would regularly go to the bank and buy a roll of dimes and/or quarters, take them home, remove the "junk" silver coins, replace them with the newly issued counterfeit coins and take it back to the bank and exchange for another one. After a few years you just couldn't find them anymore, they became rarer and rarer.
In an effort to appease some silver producing, "free-silver" western and southern US senators such as B.K. Wheeler (MT), FDR put a floor under the price of silver and wound up buying, as I recall w/o doing much research, about 5B ounces of silver in the world's silver coinage at 45c/oz when the market price had dropped as low as 25 or 30 cents per ounce.
The mid-'60s saw the US effectively demonetize silver as the US Treasury franticly minted hundreds of millions of silver coins that were being hoarded and melted down when the value of silver in US silver coins exceeded the nominal value of the coin. In only a few years, the US Treasury ran through most of the silver that FDR had bought at 45 cents/oz, and introduced the clad coinage we're using today at the same time declaring the old, genuine, silver coinage to be "demonetized" to facilitate industrial use.