Quote Originally Posted by angry nomad
The Roosevelt Gold Confiscation Order Of April 3 1933.

The Gold Confiscation Of April 5, 1933

"All persons are hereby required to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, to a Federal Reserve bank or a branch or agency thereof or to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates now owned by them or coming into their ownership on or before April 28, 1933..."

"Whoever willfully violates any provision of this Executive Order or these regulation or of any rule, regulation or license issued there under may be fined not more than $10,000, or,if a natural person may be imprisoned for not more than ten years or both..."

Ten grand was like a 100,000 dollars today.

Why did Roosevelt force us to give up our gold and Gold Certificates to the Federal Reserve, a private bank, in exchange for crappy Federal Reserve notes under threat of imprisonment or an impossibly huge fine?

What was so wrong about individuals owning gold or gold certificates?
The gold confiscation act definitely was screwed up, and of course it was eventually repealed. You are free to own gold now.

Quote Originally Posted by angry nomad
Ron Paul said he wants to introduce a competing gold backed currency. What is the harm in that? We compete with currencies from all over the world anyway.
I'm not sure I get what is meant by a "competing gold backed currency." We don't actually "compete" with other currencies. Our currency is traded agaisnt other currecies, but would you call it competing? Our currency is also traded against gold, and this is one of the reasons I don't really see what the point of a gold backed currency is. You can buy gold if you don't have faith in the Dollar, and you can also buy Euro's, Yen, whatever other more favorable or stable currency or commodity you want. So there already is an international gold standard --- it's called gold.

Basically, I think the time for hard currecies has passed because the value of the economies of the world have exceeded the value that could be assigned to any kind of commodity that exists in the world.

For example, how would you ever switch over to a gold standard in which every thing of value in the economy had to be calculated in terms of gold and exchangeable for gold? I don't see how it would even be possible. The value of the goods of the world is so much higher than the value of the gold of the world. Right now the exchange rate for gold is about $900.00 ounce. What would happen if the government were to say, "As of today, we are guaranteeing that every dollar is exchangeable for gold at the rate of $900.00 per ounce"? There is not that much gold in the world.

Gold has value as a commodity bacause it has some certain amount of industrial value, a value as a luxury good for things like jewelry, and a value as an exchange commodity that people artificially assign a value to becasue of their faith in it as something of stable value. If it were to become the sole exchange currency, it's value would be distorted out of all proportion.
dragonrider Reviewed by dragonrider on . Fed cuts interest rates to 3.5% Whoaaa! BBC NEWS | Business | Fed slashes rates in shock move FRB: Press Release--FOMC statement--January 22, 2008 Let's hope it works Rating: 5