Tag: gold

No, Africa Is Not Moving Toward a Gold-Backed Currency, and Neither Is Anyone Else

Speculation has long existed that nations like China or Russia, or groups such as BRICS, ASEAN, OPEC, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), or the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), might start using gold for trade or establish a common gold-backed currency to dethrone the dollar and impoverish America. However, gold cannot function as currency, and with the US holding the most gold, it would remain the richest country, unraveling this narrative quickly.

The countries with the largest gold reserves are the United States (8,133 metric tons), Germany (3,352 metric tons), Italy (2,452 metric tons), France (2,437 metric tons), Russia (2,336 metric tons), and China (2,264 metric tons). Even in a gold-based world, the US still has the most.

The issue with using physical gold as currency is that every point of purchase would need the ability to weigh the gold and evaluate its purity. Additionally, creating small enough gold coins for minor purchases is impractical. For instance, the average price of a pack of gum in the US is $1 to $2, equating to 0.061% of an ounce of gold. This is less than a single grain of sand, making it an almost imperceptible amount.

Since gold is not viable as a currency, the next option is a gold-backed currency. However, no country or group has enough gold to support its GDP.

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FDR’s Other ‘Day of Infamy’: When the US Government Seized All Citizens’ Gold

December 7, 1941 will forever be remembered as, in the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “a date that will live in infamy.” Another infamous date is April 5, 1933—the day that FDR ordered the seizure of the private gold holdings of the American people. By attacking innocent citizens, he bombed the country’s gold standard just as surely as Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

On this 90th anniversary of the seizure, it behooves us to recall the details of it, for multiple reasons: It ranks as one of the most notorious abuses of power in a decade when there were almost too many to count. It’s an example of bad policy imposed on the guiltless by the government that created the conditions it used to justify it. And the very fact of compliance, however minimal, is a scary testimony to how fragile freedom is in the middle of a crisis.

Suddenly on April 5, 1933, FDR told Americans—in the form of Executive Order 6102—that they had less than a month to hand over their gold coins, bullion and gold certificates or face up to ten years in prison or a fine of $10,000, or both. After May 1, private ownership and possession of these things would be as illegal as Demon Rum. After Prohibition was repealed later the same year, the sober man with gold in his pocket was the criminal while the staggering drunk was no more than a nuisance.

Hoarding gold was preventing recovery from the Great Depression, FDR declared. Government (which caused the Depression in the first place) had no choice, if you can follow the logic, but to seize the gold and do the hoarding itself. But of course, the big difference was this: In the hands of the government, huge new gold supplies could be used by the Federal Reserve as the basis for expanding the paper money supply. The President who had promised a 25 percent reduction in federal spending during his 1932 campaign, could now double spending in his first term.

What evidence suggested Americans were “hoarding” gold? Roosevelt pointed to a run on banks that immediately preceded his April 5 seizure decree. Indeed, people were showing up at tellers’ windows with paper dollars demanding the gold that the paper notes promised. But Roosevelt had prompted the bank run himself!

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FBI May Have Made Off With $500 Million In Lost Civil War Gold, Treasure Hunter Group Alleges

A group of treasure hunters is suing the Department of Justice over “several tons of buried Civil War-era gold” that they claim the FBI may have found and made off with. The haul was supposedly lost or stolen during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, according to local lore.

The group is called Finders Keepers – and they they wrote in a court filing last week that the FBI has failed to turn over records on its search for the gold. Previously, these records were said to have included 17 videos, but the government is now claiming only 4 such videos exist. 

The FBI took part in a March 2018 dig at the supposed site of the gold, but claims they came up with nothing.

Anne Weismann, Finders Keepers’ lawyer, told CBS: “This raises the obvious question of whether videotapes were destroyed in the interim.” Weismann is trying to have a court order the FBI to explain the discrepancy in videos. 

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