(Vanity) Why did FDR order people's gold holdings siezed?

thoughts of a wondering mind | Aug 31, 2003 | yankeedame

[yankeedame]

In a great post re: FDR I came across yesterday there was a link to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy dealing with The Depression.

Two interesting paragraphs in that work struck me:

"...He (FDR) struck in every known way at the integrity of the U.S. dollar through quantitative and qualitative deterioration. He seized the people's gold holdings...."

and

"Congress gave the president the power first to seize the private gold holdings and American citizens and then fix the price of gold...Roosevelt also single-handedly torpedoed the London Economic Conference in 1933, which was convened...to bring down tariff rates and restore the gold standard..."

Now my question is: Why? Why did FDR- and his administration- go after gold with such a vengenance? Can somebody help me here? I'm genuinely puzzled.

Thanks, --YD

[Norse]

I believe what happened was that since the U.S. economy was crashing, demand for dollars decreased and people came to the gold window asking to trade in their dollars for gold.

Well, Roosevelt, who had zero economic sense, saw this as a bad thing, which it really wasn't, and had gold siezed, so it wouldn't leave the country.

[Orangedog]

What FDR did was one of the biggest thefts in U.S.history. He made everyone, under threat of criminal sanction, turn in their gold for about $20/oz. Then once the feds had it, they fixed the price at $35/oz.

[Always Right]

FDR was a socialists who believed in big government controlling everything.

[MayDay72]

...Does anyone know if this has anything to do with 'Breton Woods'...Or the creation of the 'Federal Reserve Bank'...Or the change from the 'gold standard' to 'fiat money?

...I've see these references [such as 'Breton Woods'] before in this context...I know that the United States was once on the 'gold standard' and later changed [during the approximate time period that yankeedame is asking about] to 'fiat money'...

...Could someone provide a link or offer some information on this subject?

[OpusatFR]

Try this:

Morgan, American Financier

written by Jean Strouse.

[MayDay72]

'And FDR a socialist? Maybe, but he didn't just believe government could create jobs and restore the economy, he actually used the government to successfully create jobs and ease the blow of the depression.' -upright_citizen

...You might want to check out this thread regarding F.D.R. and socialism. This is the post that yankeedame first mentioned [that prompted this post]:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/973318/posts?q=1&&page=1

[Dutch Boy]

FDR was a communist at heart. He surrounded himself with communists in nearly every department. He sure had no trouble following the same road as "Uncle Joe" just look at how fast he picked a visually different group and had them looked up and their posessions stripped. All this without due process.