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Your post #26 makes excellent points.

It seems to me that Jim Sinclair (whoever he is) wrote this piece as a wishful self-fulfilling prophecy. In my mind, he wrote this hoping that if he spins it enough, someone in power will read it and back off from gold confiscation in the near future.

I am guessing Sinclair owns some gold, or he owns some pieces of paper that says he owns real gold stashed somewhere by somebody that he hopes to trades for real gold someday. He wrote that confiscation will "never happen" in order to plant the seed to the powers that be to leave his gold alone.

In this case: Fail.

Perhaps - there may be a bit of that. The flip side to that argument I’ve noticed for some years now, I wonder if those who talk about confiscation don’t at least unconsciously want it to be so. It’s an extension of the rabid anti-gold folks - gold was ignored or derided for many years, and its adherents derided as cranks. Now that’s fine, everyone has their opinion, and they’re welcome to it.

But the People Who Really Hate Gold always seemed.. a bit more driven somehow, more motivated. The classic, really, is this nutcase on the Marketwatch comment boards who for several years derided “goldbugs” constantly, saying it was overpriced and due for a crash. Maybe. But kept at it when gold was $400... $500.. $600... My point is, nobody takes time out of their day every day to jump on some stock discussion board and start nagging on folks for buying Microsoft stock. No, with these folks it’s an OBSESSION. What was most interesting though, as the price of gold
continued to rise past $1800, after years of calling gold a “stupid thing” and all manner of specious arguments, this poster decided that the government should now steal it. Now, we all know that was the underlying sentiment all along - control freaks are, well, control freaks.

My contention is that even some gold bugs want “confiscation”, probably because they associate such notions with FDR, Ft. Knox, a relatively secure childhood or stories of same, and a period of economic stability that no longer exists. Somebody to “take care” of things. Uncle Sugar, why, he’s good for it - gubbmint has all that money! See where I’m going with that?

I don’t write off JS as a kook, though he definitely has some “tout” (to put it into a single word) characteristics. Indeed, he is eminently qualified to speak to gold and its various whatevers, having written about gold from long ago and far away. He’s been an advocate (not a permabull) for many, many years. More importantly, he has called the major moves in the gold market for at least 40 years. Including the massive dump post-1980, which he said (at the time) would take 15 years to play out (it took 20) He’s been the CEO of several companies (now: Tan Range Gold in Tanzania) and has been head of several trading and market making firms. Should you study the gold (or silver) market you’ll find there are maybe 20 guys who are the acknowledged gurus and he’s one of them.

this article may give you a better idea of where he comes from than the snippet originally posted.

http://www.futuresmag.com/2012/05/01/jim-sinclair-has-something-to-say?t=regulations&page=2

Anyway, I’ve been into precious metals for many, many years and have more often than not thought that the stack of dumb metal piled up in the corner is smarter than the smartest smarties there are. One either buys the metal and holds it for time indefinite, or not. The type of broad-brush, all encompassing “this will never happen” statement covering 4 distinct aspects (possible confiscation of physical, the taxation of phys sales, the taxation of stock (GLD) sales, the potential reinstatement of a gold standard) all of which are large if not giant topics, I am not comfortable with.

But...he’s been in the gold market decades longer than I have.