If the SHTF, you can bet that Fedzilla will confiscate citizens’ gold holdings as FDR did in the 1930s.
Why I’m not worried about confiscation.
1. There ain’t enough gold in private hands to make a bit of difference to the national economy.
2. The political consequences wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Any government motivated enough merely to punish its political detractors would be a terrible police state, and we’d have much more to worry about.
3. Gold owners have learned their lesson, and are holding it where the government can’t get it, and will refuse to turn it in, knowing that a future administration will legalize it.
4. The non-compliance factor will make it not worth the trouble. Those who dare contemplate it will be advised that no one will comply: “You might as well try to take away their guns.”
5. “Confiscation” isn’t and never was. It was redemption for dollars at the current market price. You might get screwed by debasing of the dollars you get in exchange, but not buying gold in the meantime is no protection from this, and loses you the benefits of the gains.
6. Last time gold was confiscated the dollar was on the gold standard, meaning that gold in private hands prevented the government from monkeying with the dollar. Now they can (and do) monkey all they want for their own political ends, and don’t need to confiscate gold to do it.
7. Silver (or platinum, especially these days). ‘Nuff said.
Last time, they paid “market rates.”
It was a rate set by the Federal Government ($20.67 per troy ounce as per Executive Order 6102), which the Treasury subsequently raised to $35 per troy ounce.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act
What does your point #7 mean? Use silver?