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The possibility of gold confiscation is every precious metal investor’s worst nightmare. And this fear is solidly based in historic fact. During the depths of the Great Depression, President FDR issued Executive Order #6102 on April 5, 1933. This questionable law required all U.S. citizens to surrender their gold coins, gold bullion and gold certificates to the Federal Government.
This blatant gold confiscation was tantamount to outright theft. People were given less than a month to comply with the order. If their gold was not promptly delivered to a Federal Reserve Bank, branch or agency thereof, they could face stiff penalties. Failure to obey this draconian law carried the threat of a $10,000 fine (a massive amount of money back in the 1930s) along with 10 years imprisonment. The only realistic exemptions were for gold coins with numismatic value or non-numismatic coins in amounts not exceeding $100 face value (about 4.8 troy ounces).
The Federal authorities even moved to confiscate silver in addition to gold. On August 9, 1934 FDR promulgated Executive Order #6814, which mandated that all silver bullion be delivered into the coffers of the U.S. Federal Government. Happily, circulating U.S. silver coins (dimes, quarters, half dollars and silver dollars) were specifically exempted from this executive order to minimize its the disruptive effect on the public.
In practice, very little silver bullion was seized under Executive Order #6814. Instead, the government passed the Silver Purchase Act of 1934, which included a 50% windfall profit tax on the sale of silver bullion payable via revenue stamps. This silver bullion tax, which wasn’t repealed until 1963, effectively blunted any speculative impulses towards the noble metal for several decades.
So asking whether gold confiscation (or even silver confiscation) can happen again is something that understandably preoccupies many of today’s precious metal investors. And the United State’s steadily deteriorating fiscal condition certainly suggests it could be a possibility sometime before the end of the 2020s.
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Right now U.S. Federal debt is a mind-blowing $23 trillion, well on its way to $40-something trillion by 2030. State and local debt, although smaller in absolute terms, is still precariously inflated. We could see those municipal debts double from today’s $3 trillion to perhaps $6 by 2030.
Federal entitlement spending (primarily Social Security and Medicare) is perhaps the worst debt bomb of all, with an estimated unfunded liability somewhere between $47 and $210 trillion, depending on who you want to believe. And the political will to reform entitlement programs simply does not exist in Washington at the current time. This means that meaningful change will only realistically come via a financial crisis of some description.
And don’t even get me started on the stock market, which is currently experiencing the largest bubble in all of human history. Being priced to perfection, the equities markets are incredibly vulnerable to a synchronized crash that would devastate Federal tax revenue.
So as the 2020s progress, it is obvious that some sort of financial calamity, or series of financial calamities, will almost certainly occur. Under these circumstances, it is not so far-fetched to believe that the U.S. government could once again seek to solve its financial problems via gold confiscation. After all, relatively few households own significant quantities of gold, silver or platinum at the moment (although that might change as average people realize just how bleak our national fiscal situation is). So seizing precious metals would have the political advantage of filling government coffers while only directly impacting a minority of the populace.
Having said that, I think there will be a specific order to any gold confiscation, if it were to occur. Our current crop of sleazy politicians may be corrupt narcissists, but they aren’t chumps. They understand that some forms of precious metal seizure will play better in the public arena than other types. Keeping this in mind, I’ve constructed a list of gold confiscation targets in the probable order they would occur:
1) Precious Metal ETFs
Precious metals held by ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) are the logical first step in any gold confiscation scenario. ETFs are stock-like vehicles held in brokerage accounts by speculators, traders and investors. But almost everyone buying gold ETFs is interested in paper profits, not actual physical ownership of gold.
This is just as well, because it is an open question as to just how much physical gold these ETFs actually hold. A large portion of their purported precious metal holdings may simply be paper futures contracts or other incorporeal gold derivatives.
Regardless, when the time comes it will be easy for politicians to mandate the seizure of any ETF-linked physical precious metal holdings. As long as any seized gold is immediately replaced with piles of freshly printed fiat money, everything will remain copacetic. Most people who own these ETFs won’t complain, provided they realize a paper profit.
2) Commodity Exchange Warehouses
The U.S. commodity exchanges, like the COMEX, CBOT and NYMEX, all have warehoused silver, gold and platinum that they use to back futures contracts traded on their platforms. The ostensible purpose of these commodities marketplaces is to allow miners, recyclers and industrial consumers to hedge their precious metal exposure in a convenient paper contract.
But in reality, the futures market is a cesspool of speculators, gamblers and manipulators, with very few legitimate users. In addition, only a tiny fraction of futures contracts are physically settled; up to 98% of contracts settle with cash instead. This is fortuitous in a perverse way because the physical precious metal holdings stored in the commodity exchange warehouses represent a miniscule percentage of the outstanding paper contracts at any given point in time. In other words, there are far more gold future contracts than there are gold bars to delivery into them – yet another prime example of modern day institutionalized financial fraud.
Consequently, it would be fairly simple to decree a gold confiscation edict focused on the commodity exchanges. There would be very little blowback from a public relations perspective and only a relatively small number of real industrial participants would be impacted. But it is an open question just how much physical gold the government could derive from this move.
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3) Mining Companies
I would like to preface this by saying that I believe the seizure of gold mining companies to be rather unlikely.
However, mining companies would be the next rational target for a resource-starved government contemplating gold confiscation. Unlike with ETFs and commodity exchanges, we know for a fact that gold miners actually possess sizable quantities of physical gold, albeit locked in the ground. A gold confiscation applied to gold mining companies could take a number of varied forms, not all of which would be obvious theft.
For example, politicians could mandate that all domestically domiciled miners sell their production exclusively to the government for a predetermined (almost certainly below-market) price. Or the government could demand that miners issue them a “golden share”, which would entitle the holder to a significant ownership interest in the underlying company (perhaps 10% to 25%) along with a veto on any undesirable corporate activity (like fleeing offshore). The government could even outright nationalize gold miners, buying out former shareholders with rapidly depreciating fiat currency.
There are a lot of different directions a bankrupt government could take here that would only raise a moderate amount of dissent, making this a reasonably attractive proposition.
4) Private Bullion Dealer Inventories
Now we are beginning to really scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of gold confiscation. Once the government has raided precious metal ETFs, commodity exchange warehouses and mining companies, it becomes much harder to get more gold without looking like an insatiable, thieving monster.
Nevertheless, a further possibility is the inventories of private bullion dealers. These would be the holdings of retail-facing companies like KITCO (yes, I know they’re Canadian, but some of their gold is stored in the U.S.), APMEX, Provident Metals and JM bullion. These companies undoubtedly hold substantial quantities of physical precious metals, so a destitute government might be tempted to seize their inventory.
But the public opinion blowback would be substantial, in my opinion. These are not massive, unethical corporations or unsympathetic, day-trading speculators. These are small-to-mid-sized, privately-held companies that operate on paper-thin margins to provide everyday people reasonably-priced access to gold and silver bullion. Subjecting them to a gold confiscation edict would be like sending up a signal flare letting the public know that the government is (eventually) coming for their personal precious metals stash.
5) Gold IRAs
Now things get downright ugly. If the government has churned through all its other options, it might resort to seizing physical precious metals held in self-directed gold IRAs. On the upside (from the government’s perspective), there is actually real gold and silver held in these accounts, not paper contracts. On the downside, there is probably not very much gold or silver in these accounts in aggregate, at least not when compared to some of the juicier gold confiscation options higher up on this list.
But most importantly, the optics of a precious metal nationalization involving gold IRAs would be abysmal. The government would be outright robbing small investors who are trying to save for their retirement. It would be utterly impossible to spin this public relations disaster in any kind of a positive way, so I think it would definitely be a last resort.
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6) Foreign Central Bank Reserves Held in Custody
Another potential target for gold confiscation would be foreign central bank reserves held in the New York Federal Reserve’s high security underground vault in downtown Manhattan. Although the Fed does not disclose exactly how much gold it holds in custody or who owns it, as of 2016 there was an estimated 6,000 metric tons of gold in the New York Fed’s vaults.
The largest holders are believed to be the IMF (International Monetary Fund) at around 2,000 tonnes, followed by Germany at 1,347 tonnes, Italy at 1,000 tonnes and the Netherlands at 190 tonnes. Other minor holders are thought to be Sweden, Finland, Greece, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Ghana, the BIS (Bank for International Settlements) and the European Central Bank.
A gold confiscation that seized these holdings would have major international repercussions, which is why I’ve placed it so low on my list. Having said that, if the U.S. government was desperate enough, they might consider seizing gold held in custody for one or more smaller countries. The aggrieved nations would have no recourse other than to lodge a token diplomatic protest.
Another possibility is the confiscation of IMF and BIS gold holdings if the international trade/monetary system were to utterly implode during a future financial crisis. Under this scenario there would presumably be less of an international outcry as these institutions would have outlived their political usefulness. It’s also possible that this form of gold confiscation could actually happen before gold IRAs were seized, depending on geopolitical circumstances.
7) Private Gold Holdings
The surrender of private gold holdings by ordinary citizens is the Big Kahuna – the gold confiscation that precious metal investors everywhere dread the most. This is the type of confiscation that occurred during the 1930s. However, I don’t think it is very realistic today.
For one thing, I don’t think it would be remotely enforceable. Even back in the 1930s, there were many, many people who simply did not turn in their gold coins. And there was only ever a single Federal prosecution under Executive Order #6102, which resulted in an acquittal (although the gentleman did lose his gold).
Today’s average citizen trusts the government far less than the everyman of the 1930s. A mere trickle of gold would make its way into government coffers if a modern-day, blanket gold confiscation law was promulgated. All the gold currently in private hands would simply disappear into basements, closets and safe deposit boxes.
And things would turn ugly in a hurry if the government pressed the issue. A systematic search of safe deposit boxes for gold would turn the public virulently against the entire banking system, undermining the government’s already precarious financial situation even further. If an even more heavy-handed gesture were implemented – like Federal agents being sent door-to-door to seize gold – open revolt would undoubtedly spread throughout large swathes of the country.
The outcome of a renewed nationalization of private gold holdings would be so bad that I don’t think any government would be stupid enough to try it. Of course, if the U.S. government were flat broke and desperate, no one knows just how dumb they might get. That’s one reason why some precious metal investors still buy pre-1933 semi-numismatic U.S. gold coins. These older coins would presumably have a numismatic exemption from any theoretical future gold confiscation.
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