“what about all the people who lost their gold? Were they ever made whole (a rhetorical question?)”
Might have been rhetorical, but the answer is that the gubmint paid for the gold with greenbacks, which they promptly devalued by printing a bunch more currency.
And I believe that they also devalued it more by paying (IIRC) twenty something dollars an ounce, and after the government took possession of the gold, set the price at over thirty dollars an ounce.
Legalized theft.
Mark