Treasury Claims Power To Seize Gold, Silver
652 ViewsMy last two articles, Food: The Single Most Important Asset You Can Own, and “Why Buy Gold?” on gold and silver barely broke a sweat on anyone’s brow. Other websites apparently have refused to publish these articles.
LATOC had a link to this article: Treasury Claims Power to Seize Gold and Silver.
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.
It is not paranoia that concerns me about gold and silver bug investors, it’s the idea that in a massive financial collapse which experts around the world now predict as likely, they think they’re going to somehow remain “protected” in precious metals.
Ron Paul (not an expert, but not unknown either) is declaring the United States as being totally bankrupt and that a huge financial crash to zero is a real possibility. Many others have said the same thing, including Alan Greenspan. Also see “Congress Will Do Nothing To Stop The Financial Disaster“.
If that were to happen, the US Treasury would not just dry up and blow away. They would implement economic and financial policy to protect as much wealth as they could. And they way they would do it would be to declare precious metals and financial instruments forfeit.
If you’re holding a bag of gold, what do you suppose they might do?
It’s true that anything could be seized, but what’s not true is the practical application of trying to seize non-portable assets such as food. Can you really envision trucks going from house to house to seize your food?
What’s easy to envision is gold and silver being outlawed as a form of exchange, with federal orders to turn in all of your gold and silver at the nearest bank. Anyone caught using gold and silver would be fined, arrested and imprisoned.
Far fetched? It already happened here once, it can easily happen again, especially if the financial markets crash.
The U.S. Government has the authority to prohibit the private possession of gold and silver coin and bullion by U.S. citizens during wartime, and, during wartime and declared emergencies, to freeze their ownership of shares of mining companies, the Treasury Department has told the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee.
But gold and silver advocates shouldn’t feel too picked on. For the U.S. Government claims the authority in declared emergencies to seize or freeze just about everything else that might be considered a financial instrument.
I know I sound like a broken record, but the common sense approach is not sinking in (still). We’re in severe, serious financial trouble. Food shortages are developing around the world. Climate collapse is now a fact, happening everywhere. Peak energy is here. Global tipping points for the environment, climate, finance and energy have now passed.
We are on the downward slide of a very rough ride. What’s in your pantry? Have you bought seeds, tools and land? Do you know how to grow your own, preserve your own and make it last from season to season? What have you done about the gigantic transportation question? Home defense? Police state?
It’s big picture and it’s not really possible to put into a single post. But it’s also a picture that can’t be escaped from or denied into oblivion. It’s happening, it’s here, right now and it’s getting worse.
October 9th, 2007 at 12:03 am
“Have you bought seeds, tools and land? Do you know how to grow your own, preserve your own and make it last from season to season?” Yes, yes, and yes.
“Can you really envision trucks going from house to house to seize your food?”
Absolutely. Might not be the governments trucks, but I’m pretty sure more than a few people will be killed for food. I can easily see the National guard or blackwater confiscating whatever they need in time of collapse. Supply lines gone; they’ll feed off the people. Local gangs, etc…plenty of reason to hide some of your food.
Get out of ‘the system’. Knowledge is the best ‘hedge’. We might not be able to hang on to anything at all…gold, money, food, land…..freedom….our very lives. Get prepared for terrible times BUT try to enjoy life today as much as you can without harming. KNOW that that car is probably your last. That glass of orange juice might be your last. That bottle of fine scotch: Savor it. Make some of these things ‘your last one’, and get prepared. Enjoy some of the less harmful civilised pleasures while you can. See what it’s like to live that way as opposed to the American way of always more and more and more. Soon enough it will be less and less and less. May as well start getting used to it now.
Luck to us all.
October 9th, 2007 at 7:31 am
In the last depression in the US, ‘revenuers’ were hated for regular confiscation raids of food, alcohol and livestock. People were guarding potatoes in the ground at night. The most recent economic collapse in the former soviet union had similar food thievery, but local officials there would accept bribes instead. Maybe worth considering??
With the new penchant for registering every last goat and seed with a NAIS like plan, I would imagine every last Mormon and bulk food credit card purchaser is in the grandiose data vat as well.
However they have not done the work required. Their software algorithms give a huge numbers of false positives and they would be expecting to select a location/person and be wrong more than half the time. So, maybe acting lessons for us all?
October 9th, 2007 at 8:30 am
On gold:
Of course, I’d love to have land, and be able to convert my fiat money into really useful commodities. My current situation prohibits that, leaving me with the following:
1. Keep money in bank (haha)
2. Put money in mattress (inflation kills it).
3. Invest (yuck).
4. Gold/Silver.
For me, (4) is the lesser of evils. It’s not perfect, and can be confiscated. However, confiscation didn’t exactly work as planned last time. Not to mention that gold can be traded. How can they confiscate something that I’ve given away?
In all likelihood, I’ll have cashed mine in long before it comes to that. There’s risk, yes, but I watch developments like a hawk.
Given the certaintly of inflation destorying paper money, or the tangibility of gold/silver, which have held value for 5,000 years, I’ll go with metals - if only as a stopgap measure to hopefully allow me to buy land sometime in the future.
In the meantime I play a dangerous game - to try to make as much money as possible before gridcrash, and the bottom of the real estate market (both in the US and abroad)…with a little luck, I’ll be able to jump from the sinking Titanic onto a smaller lifeboat (hopefully one that’s full of women).
October 9th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Interesting topic. A few comments:
Food, like stock options, is a wasting asset. It “depreciates” with time and you have to be not only right about rising prices, but also about the timing. If the country limps along for another 10 years only getting a little worse than today, what’s your old food going to be worth in 10 years?
It’s not easy to compare gold and food. They are different parts of a diversified “portfolio.”
When they confiscate gold in an crisis, why would they not just pay you the current value in cash for your gold? That’s what they did in the 30’s. If it gets to the point where they’re just taking it with no payment, then things are so bad that owning gold won’t help anyway, and the gov’t would likely be taking many things, including confiscating barrels of wheat from “hoarders,” or your land, etc.
I think it’s most likely that any new currency will also be fiat. Why screw around with gold when you can just start a new currency and keep playing the same games? They may just keep ignoring gold and silver as they do today. Precious metals probably won’t be much better off than other assets like land, oil, agricultural commodities. Why single them out? (I’m not as convinced about this paragraph.)
In the worst case scenario, nothing is guaranteed. Owning land is probably the best. For other less dire scenarios, gold and food have their place.
October 9th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I don’t suppose you’re aware of a few things (on this site) since you are a new poster.
Food is only a depreciating asset if it goes bad which I think you’re assuming is the case.
Storable food can keep upwards of 30 years. As an example of price / value / depreciation, last year, a package I sell sold all year long for $658. This year, it sells for $775. What do you suppose it will cost in ten years? Well over $1200, easily.
What will it be worth in 10 years? Absolutely priceless. Literally priceless, because food will be a difficult commodity to obtain due to the depleted energy and the effects of climate change. There are many other factors to consider too, but I’m trying to stay focused here on your comment.
Wheat jumped nearly 40% in the last two months. There is no indication this will change (ever). Dairy products jumped over 300% in August. Corn, chicken, beef, and all corn / dairy related all took a big hit. This won’t change for a lower cost, ever.
Food demand, worldwide has jumped through the roof. This will worsen as our ability to grow, harvest, transport and distribute food is impacted on a million different levels.
Oil = Food and vice versa. They are intricately linked in cost and importantly, availability. No oil = greatly reduced food production = gigantic price increases.
Gold can be confiscated as we all know, at whatever price (if any) they demand. Who wants to buy gold at $775 an ounce, only to be told to turn it in at $350 an ounce? It can happen. It probably will too.
I do not buy into the arguments that land and food will be confiscated because most of these claims are a) baseless; b) impractical; c) unenforceable.
Even so, I admit the possibility that it could happen, but it’s inefficient and extreme and it would be highly dangerous for them to engage in something such as this.
However, this is NOT the case with confiscating gold or silver, or devaluating the metal itself because they already own and control the access points.
These are the banks, of course. Electronic banking and cash exchange and all the other things banks do is not just going to “go away”. By decree, they could declare all precious metal assets to be the value that they determine. Any exchange of precious metals could be governed to ensure that it’s one way at all times - from your hands, to their, whereas you receive fiat money in exchange with no other choice.
Your assets could be devalued literally overnight. Not so with food. Food will remain an expensive, necessary commodity in extremely high demand.
Land cannot be confiscated, it can only be controlled. If it is not occupied, they can’t do even that.
Deek has a term “landless peasants”, which fits so many of us today. Public land and vacant land will be occupied as desperate people seek food, shelter and safety from the problems in our future. This is already happening. Who cares who’s name is on the deed? If it’s not occupied, it’s not controlled.
Governed land (occupied) is a different story. I do envision the real possibility of large tracts of governed land - this would include cities, large factory farms, many neighborhoods and some rural areas, because they will have the manpower to physically control them.
But not all land - no way. They can’t, it’s a physical impossibility.
But this is much different the outlawing gold or silver or devaluing the metal or forcing it’s exchange into fiat money. These control points are already “occupied” and controlled by people beholden to the government and they WILL do what they’re told.
Right now, there are huge requirements governing all financial institutions. This is only getting worse — in case you did not know. Under the new rulings for the Patriot Act, they are now listing all kinds of businesses and enterprises as “financial institutions” to ensure their complete and total control when meltdown occurs.
Watch this video for more info on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRukPp9Tq5k
October 10th, 2007 at 9:11 am
By depreciating asset I meant is that a 2-year old can of storable food is worth more than a 10-year old can. Despite this, I agree with you that storable food’s future value will be much greater than today’s.
I just don’t think it is valid to compare food to gold in terms of an investment. They are too different in that gold does not change (even in 30 years) and it is much easier to value, transport and trade.
Bottom line, I don’t think the future will be as horrible as you do. I see a slow grinding crash. Gold will do better in my vision of the future, food in yours.
If things get as bad as you think, all bets are off. Just as goldbugs are crazy to dream of gold providing riches and security amid financial chaos, the hoarder of food is nuts to think that his year-supply of food will keep him secure and fed while others starve.
I do think you should stay in your business, because hoarding behavior is one of the natural human reactions to scarcity.
Admittedly, I am “underweight” food in my “disaster portfolio.” I appreciate your urgings in that regard.
I can predict anti-hoarding laws that would criminalize storable food just as easy as you can predict gold confiscation. The future you are talking about is such a dire scenario - people are starving in the US. This is really extreme. I don’t necessarily agree with your vision of the future, but given that vision, I would prefer food over gold, to tell the truth.
October 10th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Those who are hoarding gold, silver and/or other ‘precious’ metals do NOT need to stock-up on ass wipe since they can’t eat any of it.
Golden-calf worshipping parasitic morons ‘need to’ get a bushing clue - but they won’t.
The ‘good news is’, the shallow end of the gene pool is closet to the drain.
Hoo-rah, they’re all gonna fucking die clutching at their sparkly stuff and gleaming trinkets.
(materialism is) Priceless - just bushing priceless!
Soooooo …
what this means is there is and will be all that much more water, food, seed, land, peace… - aka LIFE - for me and mine.
Hmmm. On second-thought. Buy Gold!
One can never accumulate (die with) enough wealth (and you ‘know it’ - aka, ALL that most have ever ‘known’)
SO, everyone BUY GOLD - lots and lots of gold, and silver, and diamond, and … any thing that ‘lasts’ and lasts’
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Toddler: Mummy, I’m hungry. Mummy, what’s for dinner, Mummy?
Mom: Oh, we’re having baked golden calf with DU gravy, steamed pearls with broach sauce, tossed coin salad, and diamond ring pudding for desert (if you’re a good consumobotic until then)
Toddler: Oh boy Mummy, my favorite. My anus stopped bleeding from breakfast, so I’m really really really really … hungry, Mummy.
Mom: That’s nice. Be a good dear and wash and polish these coins for Mummy while I chop and marinate the bullion.
————–
think-think, slobber-slobber, guffaw-guffaw