Posted on 06/26/2010 2:55:21 AM PDT by cowtowney
Because of recent inquiries to GATA about the possibility of an attempt by the U.S. Government to confiscate privately held gold and silver bullion and coins and shares in companies mining the precious metals, we're republishing here the correspondence between GATA and the U.S. Treasury Department on the subject in 2005. The Treasury Department was surprisingly candid in that correspondence, asserting the U.S. Government's authority, in declared emergencies, to confiscate precious metals and to restrict ownership of mining shares -- and to confiscate and restrict every other financial asset as well. So perhaps precious metals investors shouldn't feel too paranoid.
(Excerpt) Read more at gata.org ...
They’ve done it before
U.S. Government to confiscate,more to ensue.
I’ve got the authority, through the second amendment, to shoot any idiot stupid enough to try.
When they come for my precious metals I will first give them all of the brass and lead that I’ve been able to collect over the years,then they can take the gold and silver.
What? The U.S. government confiscated silver and/or copper (and/or shares in mining companies) from American citizens during World War II? Can you provide links?
Further, isn't it more probable that any such metals were used chiefly for the manufacture of mundane materièl. I mean, the Manhatten Project was certainly a large-scale enterprise, but I would still tend to believe that, in the larger context of the overall war effort, most such metals were used merely for "ordinary" purposes (primarily on the basis of their high electrical conductivity, though Cu certainly has a wide range of uses, including making alloys).
Regards,
P.S. Separating Plutonium from Uranium isn't so very difficult; they are, after all, simply metals with differing chemical properties. The more-difficult challenge is enriching specific isotopes of one and the same chemical element (e.g., separating the fissile U-235 from the non-fissile U-238).
Yes, it was done before - but it wasn’t “confiscation”, more of a buy back.
I remember back sometime in the 1950s I was talking with my grandmother about money. She was complaining that we no longer had real money, only paper. She left the room and came back later with a small leather bag, looking around furtively - actually paranoid. She emptied the bag to show me “real money” - gold coins she had refused to turn in. Looking back I’d guess it was less than $100 face value. She told me it was illegal to have them and they couldn’t be spent. I thought that other than being pretty they weren’t worth much.
If it happened again and we were no longer allowed to own gold what good would my little stash do me? What shopkeeper would risk accepting gold in payment for goods?
It would take a total collapse of not only the economy but government before they could even be used in the black market. Think of the old post apocalyptic movies.
To my knowledge, the government has never confiscated silver. However, previous to WW2 it did purchase a considerable amount(see the Sherman Act). That silver was paid for with a “Treasury Note” that was redeemable in silver or gold. There was no confiscation involved because the silver miners were eager to have Uncle Sam step in and buy up their production.
Because silver’s electrical properties are superior to copper, and because copper was needed for the war effort, the treasury lent some of the silver it had previously purchased to the war department. This was used to wind magnets for a mass spectrometer that refined out the U235 needed for the bomb.
I also believe what gold that was confiscated was done in 1933, long before the war.
A lot of silver was used in the bearings of aircraft engines during WW2.
I actually don’t recall this power being articulated in our Constitution. I think it’s a measure of how much freedom we have lost that no one disputes that the federal government has such powers today. The federal government surely has the power to coin money and declare what’s legal tender. But that’s far different than seizing whatever other forms of property happen to serve as money substitutes acceptable by all.
The ability of private citizens to keep gold and silver as a store of value arguably is one of their best protections against the government inflating the dollar to the point of worthlessness.
They have done it before and they will kill you if you resist or object.
FDR ordered in the depression that it was illegal to use gold and issued an order to confiscate it. They melted down all the dollar gold eagles. There are just two or three of these left in the world now and, of course, they are priceless. To this day, I believe, nobody knows who has them.
I think it was a 10 thousand dollar fine to have gold and a ten year prison sentence.
If they come to take your gold, give them lead instead.
Obama will position brother against brother as he continues to dissolve this great nation into as Islamic doormate. We are his Janissary.
I’ve got a dollar bill somewhere here, that is a “Silver Certificate.”
Executive Order 6102 required U.S. citizens to deliver on or before May 1, 1933 all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve, in exchange for $20.67 per troy ounce. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, as amended on March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by fine up to $10,000 ($166,640 if adjusted for inflation as of 2008) or up to ten years in prison, or both. Most citizens who owned large amounts of gold had it transferred to countries such as Switzerland.[citation needed]
Actually the Constitution is quite clear, only gold and silver are "money". So the declaration of Federal Reserve Notes being "dollars" is fraudulent.
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