That Day When the US Government Took Everyone’s Gold

The video I posted yesterday on how money became worthless makes it sound like everyone who watches the video should consider trading all their paper money for gold.  And maybe we all should?  Of course today Gold is at a record high price but that could be because more people are waking up to the fact that paper money, backed by nothing, is not a place to store wealth.

But if paper money and gold money have always been at war because the governments would rather print paper money and not live within a budget, why wouldn’t the government just TAKE everyone’s gold and order that everyone trade it in for paper money?

“Oh Dennis…the government would never do that!  They can’t just take things from you!  That’s like stealing!” 

Well, they already take income tax, property tax, capital gains tax, sales tax, gasoline tax and inheritance tax…so why wouldn’t they take all your gold when their paper money becomes worthless?  They did it once and they will do it again.

So for all the gold bugs out there who think they are going to survive a collapse and live off their gold, the government probably has other plans for you.

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Executive Order 6102 is an executive order signed on April 5, 1933, by US PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt"forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States." The executive order was made under the authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the Emergency Banking Act in March 1933.

The stated reason for the order was that hard times had caused "hoarding" of gold, stalling economic growth and worsening the depression as the US was then using the gold standard for its currency.^[4]

On April 6, 1933, The New York Times wrote, under the headline Hoarding of Gold, "The Executive Order issued by the President yesterday amplifies and particularizes his earlier warnings against hoarding. On March 6, taking advantage of a wartime statute that had not been repealed, he issued Presidential Proclamation 2039 that forbade the hoarding 'of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency', under penalty of $10,000 fine or ten years' imprisonment or both."^[5]

The main rationale behind the order was actually to remove the constraint on the Federal Reserve preventing it from increasing the money supply during the depression. The Federal Reserve Act (1913) required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes that were issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost reached the limit of allowable credit, in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes, which could be backed by the gold in its possession (see Great Depression).

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102#:~:text=Executive%20Order%206102%20required%20all,in%202023)%20per%20troy%20ounce.