Financial Conspiracies: Fed Seizes Gold Assets in 1933

Landmark Capital loves history, especially when it involves financial scandals and conspiracies. Interpret them how you will, but this stuff actually happened! In 1933, there was government involvement in gold asset seizing. Here are the facts:

Executive Order 6102: Gold Assets in 1933

Executive Order 6102 is a United States presidential executive order signed on April 5, 1933, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt forbidding the Hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States. The effect of the order, in conjunction with the statute under which it was issued, was to criminalize the possession of monetary gold by any individual, partnership, association or corporation.

But Why?

The main rationale behind the order was actually to remove the constraint on the Federal Reserve which prevented it from increasing the money supply during the Depression; the Federal Reserve Act (1913) required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit (in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes) that could be backed by the gold in its possession. If gold can’t be legally owned, then it can’t be legally redeemed. If it can’t be legally redeemed, then it can’t constrain the central bank.

Is This Still Happening?

The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 made gold clauses unenforceable, and changed the value of gold from $20.67 to $35 per ounce, thereby devaluing the US dollar, since the dollar was gold-based. This price remained in effect until August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, thus abandoning the gold standard for foreign exchange.

Here’s the Hoax-y Part…

According to a hoax, Roosevelt ordered all the safe deposit boxes in the country seized and searched for gold by an official of the Internal Revenue Service. A typical example reads:

By Executive Order Of The President of The United States, March 9, 1933.

By virtue of the authority vested in me by Section 5 (b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended by Section 2 of the Act of March 9, 1933, in which Congress declared that a serious emergency exists, I as President, do declare that the national emergency still exists; that the continued private hoarding of gold and silver by subjects of the United States poses a grave threat to the peace, equal justice, and well-being of the United States; and that appropriate measures must be taken immediately to protect the interests of our people.

Therefore … I hereby proclaim that such gold and silver holdings are prohibited, and that all such coin, bullion or other possessions of gold and silver be tendered within fourteen days to agents of the Government … for compensation at the official price, in the legal tender of the Government.

All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed … All sales or purchases or movements of such gold and silver … are hereby prohibited.

Your possession … and/or safe deposit box to store them is known by the government from bank and insurance records. Therefore … your vault box must remain sealed, and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the Internal Revenue Service.

By lawful order …, the President of the United States.

The first known reference to this hoax was in the book After the Crash – Life In the New Great Depression. That text refers only to gold, not to silver, which was added by 1998 to Internet references. It claims to be an Executive Order, yet whoever wrote the text wrote it to apply to specific individuals, so if the text did originate from the government, it would have been sent to individuals, not published as an Executive Order. The first paragraph starts with the actual text of Executive Order 6102, then edits it slightly, and then adds apparently made-up text. Due to the minor edits and how the real text and fake text are combined mid-sentence, it is almost certainly an intentionally designed hoax rather than an accident.

Watch Your Gold

All pretty interesting isn’t it? We think so, considering the fact that our whole business is centered around Gold! Stay tuned to future blogs so you can get informed on what has happened in this country!