The fear porn headlines are beginning to flood the alternative media blogs. Everyone is warning about the growing “war on cash” and negative interest rates. Yes, it’s inevitable and all the reasons why Governments prefer a digital currency to cash are obvious. First foremost is that it is the bridesmaid to the Totalitarian creep engulfing our system.
But lost in this fog of fear is the obvious alternative: gold and silver. Worried about the elimination of $100 bills because it makes it harder to accumulate and safekeep meaningful amounts of cash? An ounce of gold stores a lot more wealth than a $100 bill. Currently one roll of silver eagles is worth more than three $100 bills.
Negative interest rates? Big deal. Over long periods of time the relative value of gold accelerates vs. all other currencies when real rates are negative. When the Fed takes nominal rates negative the price of gold/silver will begin to go parabolic. Will that happen immediately? Of course not. The Fed will try to cap the price movement of gold with B-52 payloads full of paper gold. When this happens, take as much cash out of the banking system as possible and convert it into physical gold and silver bullion coins.
Will the Government try to confiscate gold and silver? The promoters of this hypothesis have glaringly failed to study the facts. Yes, the Government decreed it to be illegal to use gold bullion coins as currency but it never embarked on an effort to “confiscate” private gold holdings. In fact, other than a few idiots who took their gold to the bank and turned it in for cash, the only gold the Government “confiscated” was gold that had been found in abandoned safe deposit boxes.
FURTHERMORE, the possession and use of silver as a currency was never outlawed. Please study the facts on what happened before you promote or buy into highly misleading or false tales about gold “confiscation.”
Whether or not the Government ever revives a moratorium on the use of gold as a currency or on its outright ownership is, quite frankly, irrelevant. There will ALWAYS be a private market in which gold will freely exchange hands for like value. Gold and silver have endured over 5,000 years as legitimate currencies. The United States has been in existence for roughly 240 years. I think I know which of the two has a better probability of surviving the economic and geopolitical hurricane that is approaching.
The rampant proliferation of “war on cash / negative interest rate” warnings are little more than the childish rants of alternative media propaganda artists. It’s like a repetitive announcement that the earth is round and circles the sun. Yes, we know that the Government is going to digitize the currency system and take interest rates negative in an attempt to channel bank balances into consumption or the stock market or Treasury bonds.
But whatever measures the Government takes to implement capital controls and increasingly exert more control over your life can be offset if you move as much cash as possible out of the system now and into precious metals.
You say: ” Yes, the Government decreed it to be illegal to use gold bullion coins as currency but it never embarked on an effort to “confiscate” private gold holdings. In fact, other than a few idiots who took their gold to the bank and turned it in for cash, the only gold the Government “confiscated” was gold that had been found in abandoned safe deposit boxes.”
Can you explain what you mean here? Why do you specify “gold bullion coins”. All gold coin in circulation was ordered to be turned in. This was not just “bullion coins”. All US gold coins were completely removed from circulation in 1933 and never circulated again. What additional facts are there to study? Where do you get your information?
Here are sections 2 and 9 from Executive Order 6102, April 5, 1933:
Section 2. All persons are hereby required to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, to a Federal Reserve Bank or a branch or agency thereof or to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System all gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates now owned by them or coming into their ownership on or before April 28, 1933, except the following:
(a) Such amount of gold as may be required for legitimate and customary use in industry, profession or art within a reasonable time, including gold prior to refining and stocks of gold in reasonable amounts for the usual trade requirements of owners mining and refining such gold.
(b) Gold coin and gold certificates in an amount not exceeding in the aggregate $100 belonging to any one person; and gold coins having a recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins.
(c) Gold coin and bullion earmarked or held in trust for a recognized foreign Government or foreign central bank or the Bank for International Settlements.
(d) Gold coin and bullion licensed for other proper transactions (not involving hoarding) including gold coin and bullion imported for reexport or held pending action on applications for export licenses.
Section 9. Whoever willfully violates any provision of this Executive Order or of these regulations or of any rule, regulation or license issued thereunder may be fined not more than $10,000, or, if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both; and any officer, director, or agent of any corporation who knowingly participates in any such violation may be punished by a like fine, imprisonment, or both.
Go do your own research. Don’t believe what you read on internet w/out doing your own due dili. I
did my own on this matter over 10 years ago. What I wrote today is based on what I found.
What did you find? Can you report briefly?
FYI, cutting and pasting the text of the EO is not relevant research. Why don’t you research what happened
in actuality. The Govt didnt’ go door to door with guns searching households for gold. The only gold they
took in is how I described it. The population was 125mm back then. It’s 325mm now. Let
’em reinstate that
EO. It’s irrelevant other than most likely another warning signal to get the fuck out this country.
When did the president get the power to enact legislation? I must have missed that amendment to the Constitution.
Thanks a lot for your clarification. Was overdue. I’m having had enough for a long time of that confiscation crap. Nobody was banging in the doors in the thirties. Gold and silver mean absolute independence. Gold is for the rich and silver for the poor people. I have both. 😉
I agree that the federal government did not go door to door with guns searching households for gold. I did not say they did. They just made it illegal for private US citizens to own gold, punishable by fine and jail time. Private gold ownership by US citizens became legal again January 1, 1975. They could easily make gold ownership illegal again, which would make it difficult for private citizens to buy and sell gold.
I have gold and silver bullion, and I invest in miners, but I am watching my back.
“They could easily make gold ownership illegal again, which would make it difficult for private citizens to buy and sell gold. ”
Come on people. Nonsense. They made it illegal to buy and sell many drugs [heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine/crack cocaine, and more] that are being sold more than ever, and these are really detrimental things that people with productive lives detest. Gold, which many women and men own as jewelry, is loved. I don’t think it will ever be that hard to sell or exchange for cash or something else of value.
Making drugs illegal makes it easier for school children to get. For example, ask a student whether it is easier to obtain alcohol or cannabis?
Many stackers also have guns to protect their stacks. So, if the government comes to collect those stacks, they may have a problem on their hands.
Hi Dave,
Although it’s unlikely to affect me very much because of where I live, I have a concern about the move to cash with respect to physical gold and silver. It’s a practical concern.
You say “There will ALWAYS be a private market in which gold will freely exchange hands for like value.”
The detail there is “for like value”. If I want to go spend say $30 on groceries how will I do that with gold and /or silver? Answer I will have to use electronic media (assuming cash is not available) and to do that I have to walk into a bank to’top up’my electronic bank balance with some gold or silver. At that point it’s just the simplest thing in the world for the bank to either refuse the gold/silver and/or report me as a possible terrorist/drug money launderer.
If I choose to sell some of my, for example, GoldMoney or Hard Asset Aliance holdings I have to use the banking system to do so and a similar problem ensues as the money from the sale can be held as a suspicious transaction.
To me the ‘war on cash’ is a lot smarter than it seems as if it can be enacted fully it can just make holding physical gold and silver effectively useless for everyday use, which is what most people hold if for – to maintain their purchasing power over time.
If silver and gold hit the prices that many are talking about then even an ounce of silver will find difficulty finding an exchange for “like value”.
“If silver and gold hit the prices that many are talking about then even an ounce of silver will find difficulty finding an exchange for “like value”.
If you are concerned about that, buy old dimes or quarters. Problem solved.
Sure, an overreaching government can make life hell. But let’s not overthink this, or get too far ahead of ourselves.
Dave:
The Sports Castle – what will become of Sniagrab?
The Garts cashed out of the sporting goods business years ago – leaving the rubble to investors to deal with via Sports Authority. Bloomberg had an article on this a while back.
http://leadercall.com/2016/02/sports-authority-to-close-sports-castle-in-140-store/
Wow I knew SA was closing a bunch of stores but I didn’t know the Sports Castle was one. That store about 10 blocks from where I live. Man that’s sad – that store has been a Denver institution “SNIAGRAB” since the 1970’s.
Bill Holter has recently made the point that the era of negative interest rates/cashless society may not come fully about. It takes some time to implement such a system. If the banking system implodes before they can use this trick, along with bail-ins, to recapitalize those banks. then it won’t matter what they ‘announced’.
I’ve read some funny comments elsewhere about how will bribery work in the cashless society? I wonder if the PTB has really thought this through..
It’s already here dude. They just need to extinguish actual cash now and that’s coming soon.
Ask the Clinton family. Just have your own foundation.
Well, It seems to me, as this is a sequential process, you have to ban cash first, or else the bank runs start the moment everyone gets charged to store their cash in a bank. The higher notes have a disproportionate share of the cash in circulation, but $100 dollar bills are not commonly used by ordinary people, except rarely. Not that I agree with doing that, or think it’s O.K.
The second that the PTB works down into lower denominations, it gets interesting, fast. I have relatives who dismiss me as part of the tin foil hat crowd, but I’m pretty sure these folks will start getting paranoid too, if the system started to remove, say, $20 bills.
I’ve mentioned this possibility to them, and they dismiss it as unlikely. When it happens, it will be a shock. One that they really need, I think.
If the ruling class gets nervous about Trump or Sanders, they ain’t seen nothing yet..
LMAO!
Hey Dave!
Check This Out!
http://www.avclub.com/article/monopoly-now-cashless-economy-232281
LOL!
Cheers,
S. Rex
THANK YOU DAVE!
Thank You
Thank You
Thank You for telling the truth about the gold confiscation Con.
The reason the government wanted gold back then was because gold backed the dollar, now the government’s word backs the dollar. If the government tries a gold grab today then it will mean that the U S Government’s word is as worthless as its fiat and the jig will be up for the dollar worldwide.
Hey Chris M. here’s a few questions for you –
If owning gold was illegal between 1933-1975 as you claim, then why was it-
-That Mr. Donald J. Hoppe was able to sell his book “How to Invest in Gold Coins” published in 1970. If gold coins were illegal then Mr. Hoppe never would have been able to sell his book or buy gold coins for himself.
-From the book “Coin Clinic” page 112, Q. How effective was the withdrawal of gold from the public in 1933? A. Like many government programs, it was something of a flop….only about seven per cent was actually turned in.
This makes sense, since if the government did confiscate all of the US Gold from 1933 and earlier there wouldn’t be any US Gold coins today. Look on eBay, ask your local coin dealer if they have any St Gaudens, you will see the confiscation wasn’t really effective.
-That gold coins were available for sale from the Gimbel’s Department Store from 1955? I’m looking at the Coin Department Price list from 1955 as I type this, on page 13 Gimbels offered a single set of U S Gold coins ($20, $10, $5 $2.50) for $115.00 (Oh to possess a time machine.)
Once again, Dave, you have my absolute thanks for revealing the confiscation con that tries to pass itself off as fact.
Thank you!
Let’s put this development in some context. The recent pronouncements of a “war on cash” and negative interest rates by CBs are inextricably linked. CBs are already practicing NIRP in the eurozone, and planning for its expansion into the US, because ZIRP has completely failed and that’s all their tiny minds can come up with to address the ongoing crisis (more of the same).
Negative rates are effectively a tax on savings. Any true tax in the US must originate as a bill in The House. This negative rate fee would be charged on deposits by banks, and so potential depositors can choose not keep their money there. As a side note, ACA (Obamacare) – ruled a tax by SCOTUS – originated in the Senate, but that’s a story for another day. One could also make the case that monetary inflation is a tax as well and is illegal due to origination at the Fed.
Negative rates (NIRP) are a doubling-down on ineffective ZIRP and QE. This is the Keynesian economic end game; after all, what comes after negative rates (rhetorical)? In their extreme hubris, the Progressives believe that they know more than everyone else (including God), and so therefore, being omniscient, should make all of life’s decisions for “the little people”. Jonathan Gruber, the key architect of ACA, is a good example of this mindset, who considers the American voter “too stupid” to understand or support it.
Keynes was a political Socialist. Keynesian economics (i.e., ex nihilo money printing and infinite debt expansion) is a Socialist construct created to enable The State to fund its misguided Socialist policies. Socialism (aka Communism) has failed historically over and over again. CBs as a key enabler of the Socialist centrally planned, command economy, are doomed to go down with the ship. No amount of “rearranging the deck chairs on The Titanic”, such as NIRP, will change the outcome. The only problem here is – as in the actual Titanic – that there aren’t enough lifeboats for the passengers. In every economic sense, gold and silver will provide this function, as people have historically flocked to the precious metals in times of economic insanity and political/social unrest, such as we are re-living again today. History repeats: Socialism fails and gold and silver provide the means of wealth preservation. Rinse and repeat. Got gold (and silver)?
If anyone disagrees here, ask yourself this question: Has the Fed, since its inception in 1913, or the theory of Keynesian economics ever really “prevented” an economic cycle, or did it rather only make the cycles deeper and worse than if the free markets were allowed to function on their own? In the true spirit of The Scientific Method – and economics is not a science (even a dismal science) – has this theory ever been proven to be correct based on the empirical data and market outcomes? Hint: No one can “prevent” economic cycles from happening, but without external interventions the peaks and troughs would be much less severe. Only fools, the prideful, or corrupt, would attempt to interfere (because of idiocy, hubris, or personal gain, in that order), and place the global economy in such a precarious condition (over and over again). The main problem is excess, unproductive debt. Deleveraging is a necessity, but since the entire system is based on debt creation, this will only happen after collapse and reset. These events are long overdue.
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/36380
Governments Keep Turning to Socialism, Even Though It Always Fails
By Stephen Moore · Jul. 15, 2015
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-political-war-on-cash-1455754850
The Political War on Cash
Feb. 17, 2016 7:20 p.m. ET
“The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.” – Lord Acton
“The enduring lesson of the 20th century is that socialism is a failure, and free markets are a success. But the politicians keep advocating just a little more socialism.” – Milton Friedman
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money [to spend].” – Margaret Thatcher
Dave, thank you for all you do by telling the truth. there are not many guys like you!
I own quite a bit of physical silver, but was thinking of putting a little cash into AGX which is ProShares Ultra Silver (ETF). I know it is a piece of paper with nothing backing it, but it should take off like a rocket sometime, shouldn’t it? You comment about this product would be appreciated. Thanks, Dave
Hey, no risk no return. I think silver is going a lot higher. Why not go with USLV? it’s 3x. AGQ is only 2x
Lest we forget section X of the United States constitution: No State shall… make any Thing (peculiar that thing is not attached to any and it is capitalized) but gold and silver Coin a Tender in the Payment of Debts. So what if some joker tries to outlaw precious metals. At what point will you reject the foolish notion that these degenerate clowns deserve any credence to say hand over YOUR property? The whole cash outlaw scare is overblown anyway. Aren’t we trying to get away from using debt based currency? Fine, Outlaw cash. I’ll buy PM’s with my debit or credit card. When will us humans stand up and tell them to go to hell?
I am native German, and I tell you what: It is time that the government starts fearing us, not the other way around. If they push us to hard, then we need to stand up and fight these rats. I will do my part, the pressure needs to become just too big, then I will move my fat ass. I am probably not alone then.
It’s actually quite easy. The want to get rid of cash, in order to impose negative interest rates onto every citizen. The next thing about it is to gain total control over every single financial transaction. Finally it gives them the power to shut down everybody they don’t like. Bearing that in mind, do you really think they will not go after every alternative form of currency, such as PM, Bitcoin etc.. One must be pretty naive to think they won’t do it. They won’t have to seize it from the citizens. They can either declare it illegal to trade it, or they can tax you to death should you try to sell some. They will find ways to make your life impossible, there’s no doubt about it.