Posted on 10/11/2011 9:32:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
How Bankrupt Governments Will Confiscate Your Gold
About two weeks ago, GoldMoney sent out an apologetic email to all of its Dutch customers. The email explained how the Dutch financial regulator (AFM) considered GoldMoney to be in violation of various licensing rules and compliance requirements.
Among other things, AFM indicated that GoldMoney was selling ‘investment objects’ without a license… something that they consider a heinous breach of their silly bureaucracy.
Now, there are so many technicalities involved here– whether physical metal constitutes ‘investment objects’ anymore than a collection of 80s action figures or a cellar of fine Bordeaux. Then there’s the jurisdictional issue– GoldMoney doesn’t even operate in the Netherlands, nor does the company sell its own inventory. Etc., etc.
None of these points seem to matter; the regulators have spoken, and as a consequence, GoldMoney is now closing the accounts of every customer living in the Netherlands.
It’s always troubling when governments go after firms like GoldMoney. The more signs I see, the more I’m starting to believe that we’re heading down a path where precious metals are once again confiscated, outlawed, or at least severely restricted in many countries.
Let’s start with the why. What possible sense would it make to reduce or restrict gold ownership?
Simple. The modern financial system is a complete joke. Money is conjured from thin air, backed by false promises from bankrupt governments. Then there’s the fractional reserve swindle, centrally planned interest rates, government-produced inflation, manufactured statistics, insane credit and sovereign debt bubbles, etc.
It’s a total fraud… and like any good con, it depends on just that: confidence.
In order for a system based on -nothing- to perpetuate, it’s imperative that it commands the confidence of the people within it. And people in rich western countries have been programmed since birth to believe that the colored pieces of paper circulating around in their economies are intrinsically ‘valuable’.
It’s funny, because developing countries already know it’s a scam. They don’t trust their governments, and they don’t trust those silly pieces of paper either. Out here in Asia is a great example– most of the region is very gold-oriented. They use paper as a medium of exchange, but it’s a cultural norm to save with gold.
In fact, when I walked into an Internet cafe earlier today here in Thailand, I noticed quite a few people at the computers checking out live gold charts (from Kitco).
People in western countries are just starting to get it… and as more people peek behind the curtain to see the true crimes being committed, the system will be finished.
The gold price is a constant reminder that the fiat financial system is a con job. And the higher the gold price becomes, the more people become aware. The political establishment will do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo, and it’s possible that precious metals restrictions will become a tactic:
Step 1: Just make gold ‘harder’. To buy. To transport. To own.
Think about the changes we’ve seen over the last two years; government-regulated exchanges are continually hiking their gold margin requirements, increasing investors’ burden to buy.
On the physical side, the US government buried some insane regulations deep within last year’s healthcare bill. The new rules required a mountain of paperwork such that anyone who purchased a single ounce of gold from a coin shop would have to submit a special 1099 form to the IRS.
(The rule was later modified under intense pressure from various lobby groups, but it still gives you a good idea of what these people are thinking…)
Then there’s the new Dodd-Frank legislation that makes it nearly impossible for US citizens to trade securities and commodities from overseas accounts beyond the reach of the federal government.
Then there’s the Liberty Dollar debacle in which the US government used obscure counterfeit laws to seize millions of dollars of silver coins that were owned by the firm’s customers!
Then earlier this year, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued new guidance requiring that US taxpayers who hold gold in certain offshore financial accounts report such holdings on their annual FBAR. Conveniently, this ruling put up a barrier for Americans to use GoldMoney.
GoldMoney’s battle with the Dutch regulators is just another example of governments making gold ownership more cumbersome.
Step 2: Plant seeds of doubt
We’re seeing signs of this as well. “Prominent” economists have been pounding the table against precious metals with vigor, and the propaganda ministry is focusing its efforts on gold’s recent price drop to make people believe that it’s dangerous to buy.
This recent media clip in which a reporter extols the virtues of the US dollar being backed by the federal government says it all. It’s already begun, and we should expect more.
Step 3: Tie gold to terrorism. Plant evidence.
Here are two incontrovertible facts: Westerners are petrified of Arab terrorists. The Arab world is a very gold-oriented society. It wouldn’t take much effort to link the two by suggesting (and planting evidence) that terrorists use gold to move money and finance their operations.
This will be surely be the next step… and if we start seeing this, you can bet your last ounce that restrictive controls are coming.
So what to do…?
If you live in a broke western nation, whatever you do, don’t store your gold in a bank safety deposit box. Bankers are unpaid government spies, so you might as well hang a sign up that says “please seize my assets”.
Ideally you want to move your gold out of the country. We’ve talked about anonymous boxes in Vienna’s Das Safe facility in the past, as well as Hong Kong’s The Storage. Both of these are great options to buy and store gold.
Molon Labe. My silver and gold is protected by steel, brass, and lead.
You've got that backwards. A business would have had to submit a 1099 for any vendor from whom they bought more than $600 total of goods or services. In this case if the gold shop bought a gold coin back from a person, the store would have to track it and send a 1099 at the end of the year. On the other hand a person could freely buy the gold without any records. It would work just the same as if the gold shop decided to upgrade their display cases and paid more than $600 to the display seller, so the store would have had to send a 1099 to him.
Buy Gold with Cash from small time dealers a little bit at a time as gold “collector coins”.
Then bury it.
Also buy some “officially” but just a coupld hundred worth. Let them take the take the hundred dollars worth, they will move on from there.
—Ideally you want to move your gold out of the country.—
HAHAHAHA!.
I have a vacuum seal machine a shovel and acreage for a reason.
[ —Ideally you want to move your gold out of the country.— ]
If you do this you will NEVER see your gold again if the country you move it to collapses or confiscates gold.
—Buy Gold with Cash from small time dealers a little bit at a time as gold “collector coins”.
Then bury it.—
That is exactly how I do it. Except I’m all about junk silver. Bulky, but I have a lot of land.
—If you do this you will NEVER see your gold again if the country you move it to collapses or confiscates gold.—
I agree. I also get concerned for Americans that expatriate to places like Thailand, Honduras, etc. When the SHTF and the US government is pretty neutered, those folks will not have the “protection as an American” in those places. If things are in turmoil, they could suffer the fate of so many British did in Shanghai before WWII.
I’ve said it before on Free Republic. If you can’t reach out and physically touch it, then it’s not under your control. This applies to both Gold and other precious metals as well as the Brass tubes capped with Copper jacketed lead. and the tools that require them.
So my advice is simple. If you want to invest in gold or silver make sure you get the real thing instead of a ‘certificate’. And Safety deposit boxes aren’t secure either FDR taught us that lesson.
Curiously, at the same time the US and European governments are creating barriers to private gold ownership (and there are many examples of this), the Chinese government is actively encouraging private gold ownership.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Binion
Didn’t all go as planned for Ted Binion (Benny’s boy). He buried his metals.
And yet in Asia they’re installing gold and silver vending machines! Swipe your card, get a gold or silver coin...
The future of capitalism and personal asset freedom seems to be shifting to Asia, away from the West...
That is it preciously.
As this country slides into the debt chasm, and the coming tyranny of National Socialism, freedom will be an ancient memory. Economic freedom especially.
Personal freedoms spring forth from the foundation - economic freedom. The freedom to keep the results of your own labors. That is how you can exercise every other right you have, and gain the ability to protect those other rights.
Remove a man’s economic freedom, and you have effectively eliminated all of his other freedoms. He has no means to support himself independent of what the Government desires. He will do what the Government demands - or starve.
The best thing we can do worldwide for all people is to export the idea of capitalism and support it as strongly as possible. When people have built some economic freedom, and no longer have to worry about food today and tomorrow, they’ll start looking for more freedoms and opportunities in other areas of their life.
There’s a reason Milton Friedman’s classic tome is called “Capitalism and Freedom”. You cannot have one without the other - ever. They are co-dependent. Too many in the US are rightfully upset with the loss of our freedom but do not acknowledge it’s coming predominantly by the erosion of capitalism.
The moral of that story is to keep your mouth shut. Don’t tell anyone you have a treasure or where you’ve hidden it.
The benefit of junk silver is that it is currency not bullion...not precious metal until it is melted down. However when the SHTF it will be popularly used for lots of transactions based on the melt value and not the face. See: http://coinflation.com
Amen. A paper certificate is just that, a piece of paper. The feds will be sorely disappointed in my safety deposit box. Mine is filled with negatives and CDs of the family albums, bwahahaha! FYI, a CD won't fit in a small box.
pingaroo
—The benefit of junk silver is that it is currency not bullion...not precious metal until it is melted down. However when the SHTF it will be popularly used for lots of transactions based on the melt value and not the face. See: http://coinflation.com—
Exactly! and coinflation is bookmarked on all my computers and my phone. :-p
” Too many in the US are rightfully upset with the loss of our freedom but do not acknowledge it’s coming predominantly by the erosion of capitalism.”
That is the sad part. Most conservatives still think that we do have economic freedom, and don’t see the coming danger the implosion of the credit markets, and the insolvent banks will bring to this nation. It is only a matter of time when this illusion of freedom will disappear.
Even now, if I try to point it out, and say anything against the banks, well, I’m just one of those loons over from DU.
They don’t seem to see that the banks are in a slow motion move to nationalization, and TARP was just the beginning.
The banks surrendered long ago, and are jostling for position now. BearSterns and Lehman won’t be the only ones to fall.
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