Friday, October 1, 2010
Will the Federal Government Confiscate Our Gold Again?
When Obamacare was passed a little known provision was deeply embedded in that monstrous piece of legislation that would have a profound effect upon every American: every transaction that exceeded $600 would have to be reported on a 1099.
The business community gasped in horror at the clerical nightmare that would bury their accounting departments in a tsunami of paperwork. But something even more insidious could explain why the feds want to know every transaction that would meet this dollar requirement. They want to know who owns precious metals, especially gold.
During the Great Depression FDR required that the citizens surrender their gold or be fined and thrown in jail. In 1935 a divided Supreme Court upheld Congress’s 1933 resolutions in 3 companion cases which became known as the Gold Clause Cases. The Court, Congress and the Executive branch had no regard for personal property rights or contracts; it was a complete repudiation of the Constitution of the United States.
The irresponsible fiscal policies Washington D.C. has willed upon the American people, could plunge the dollar in a Weimar Republic nightmare; requiring the confiscation of wealth from the citizenry. The Market Oracle outlines some notable events and the possibility that history could repeat itself:
Historically, when the economic or political shit hits the fan, governments have always moved to seize precious metals from the citizenry. The Nazis did it in World War II. The US did it in the 1930’s. The Bolsheviks did it in 1917. Rome did it by removing 90% of the silver from their coinage.
It is conceivable that, because of global economic problems, governments like the US, China and EU may once again make a move to “repatriate” the gold belonging to their citizens. Even if this is avoided, the tracking capabilities that have been provided for in the Obama health care legislation now give the government the ability to know exactly who buys how much gold, as well as an easy tracking mechanism for taxing the transaction. Rather than confiscating your gold, they may simply tax your profits at 95% at the point of sale, virtually wiping out the very reasons for why an investor buys precious metals to begin with.
Whoever put that provision in the healthcare bill may have a more evil design than just trying to collect a little revenue from simple business transactions.