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More of my readers ask me
about confiscation than any other issue. I continue to refer people to
my article from 2008, but it's time for an update.
http://silverstockreport.com/2008/confiscation.html
I stand by what I wrote in the
past, but there is more to say.
First of all, gold in the
hands of the American public has never been confiscated, never can be, and
never will be.
confiscate
1. To seize (private property) for the public treasury.
2. To seize by or as if by authority. See Synonyms at appropriate.
adj. (knf-skt, kn-fskt)
1. Seized by a government; appropriated.
2. Having lost property through confiscation.
The only gold that
has ever been confiscated was gold held by banks for their customers ! Let the buyer beware who owns
ETF's, certificates, bullion accounts, or those holding gold in some
storage program; again, beware!
The government has never, and
will never, send agents house to house, asking you for your gold, at the
threat of gun point. And even if they did, it would be so easy to evade
that kind of inquiry, by merely saying, "My gold, I sold that years ago!"
Think about it, they don't even do that to fight the drug war!!
Furthermore, in a nation of
gun owners, government agents would likely terminate the program after about
the 100th house they searched, due to the people fighting back.
If the government can't win
the war on drugs, against laid-back lazy pot heads, do you think they could
win a confiscation war against vigilant, anxious, sober, gun wielding 50-60
year olds, many of whom are decorated veterans of the special forces?
In fact, for those people who
know of Bible Prophecy, and even for the atheists and agnostics among us,
gold ownership should be the key factor keeping people alive through the
coming 7 year tribulation predicted in the Bible in Ezekiel, Daniel, and
Revelation. There will be people who will not ever take the mark of the
beast required to buy and sell, and it is those people who will likely have
silver and gold who will survive to populate the earth after the tribulation
and during the millennium, whether believers, atheists, or agnostics
alike!
Zechariah 14:16-19. Revelation 13:16-18, Rev 14:9-12, Rev 15:2,
Rev 19:20, Rev 20:4-6
See also http://bibleprophesy.org/666mark.htm
Thus silver and gold are the hardest kinds of property to confiscate, because
it is the most easily hidden of all assets that exist! Not even Satan's
ultimate government that forces mankind to accept the mark of the
beast to buy and sell or be threatened with being beheaded (Revelation
13) will be able to confiscate all the gold and silver among mankind!
Not even drug sniffing dogs
can be trained to sniff out gold, because SILVER AND GOLD DO NOT HAVE ANY
ODOR!
But let's think about this a
bit.
Why is confiscation even an
issue? Why are gold buyers being trained to ask me about
it? I believe it's because there are numismatic dealers who make more
money, and spend more money advertising, make this an issue to be able to
sell overpriced gold. Let me explain more clearly, by way of statistics.
The honest gold bullion market
is about a $2 billion market in the USA, with margins of about 1%, on
average. I estimate that, because gold eagle sales are about 1 million
oz/year (record production), and assuming that those represent half of gold
purchased in the USA (given my experience as a dealer.)
Thus, honest gold dealers have
a gold profit of about $20 million, total, among all gold dealers in the USA,
and out of that, will come ad dollars to be spent on things like this
email letter that you are reading now to inform you about the truth
of the product that we sell.
Why do I go through all
that? Because I read that the numismatic market in gold is about a $10
billion market. It is not only 5 times as large, but the profits are
much larger, too, with margins of about 50 to 100% or more, and thus, the
numismatic market earns perhaps from $2 to 5 billion per year, from
which they get to spend on advertising. So, the numismatic dealers
might have an ad budget about 100 to 200 times as large as honest gold
dealers. Think about what that means for the education of the average
gold buyer.
Thus, I believe that the largest gold dealers in the USA teach lies about
confiscation so they can sell you over priced gold that is marked up by over
100% more than it should be!
We sell double eagles, old
gold coins around 100 years old, when we get them, for about 10 to 15% over
the price of gold.
No major wholesaler has ever offered us anything significant over the spot
price, and we've called around!
Yet those same coins are often
sold to the unsuspecting public for up to 100% over the price of gold, to
naive clients who are trying to buy "non confiscable" gold.
And thus, by buying the wrong kind of gold, from liars, they end up not only
having half of their wealth immediately confiscated, due to their own
foolishness and irrational fears, but they end up funding the businesses, and
ads, of the liars who continue to spread their lies about non confiscable
gold.
This issue really bugs me, as
you can tell. I don't cover this often, because there is the other side
of it, of course. If wealthy buyers wish to buy overpriced gold, or bid
high insane prices for rare coins, that's entirely their own business, and
there's nothing wrong with that, it's their money, and they can spend it as
foolishly as they wish, and there should never be any laws passed to prevent
them from doing what they want with their own money.
Furthermore, why should I
expose a $10 billion fraud, when the fraud of selling phantom silver is a
$200 billion fraud, and much, much, much worse? To be rational, I
should write about 20 articles on the paper silver fraud for every article I
write about overpriced numismatics, and so I do.
Now, my comments do not
exactly address the issue of the 1933 gold recall, or some say,
"confiscation", where collector coins were theoretically
exempt. Collector coins were also undefined. Some say there might
be a new law passed where if you pay 15% over spot, then it could
be defined as a collector coin, and so, some more honest numismatic dealers
will hype up unwanted gold that would otherwise go to the smelter, and sell
it at 15% over spot, to satisfy the overly paranoid buyers, rather than sell
it at outrageous 100% premiums.
Now, I'm sure I'm going to be
slandered by the $10 billion numismatic industry, and forgive me if I don't
care to respond for another two years from now.
But let me put it another
way. New and popular old Eagles represent about 1/2 of the gold we
sell. All other forms of gold are the other half, and so, each of the
other forms represent a tiny portion of the other half of gold sales.
This would include bars, Krugerrands, Maples, foreign gold, fractional gold,
and old US gold coins.
Now, if you wanted to be an honest dealer, and saw that some gold was not
selling, then you have to realize that it might end up in the smelting pot
with your scrap gold and you get less than spot for it due to the refining
charge, or, since you recognize that there is next to "no" market
for that gold, you could go out and scare the newbies into paying outrageous
premiums for that gold. Or, you can take the middle ground, and be
patient, and sell it at reasonable bullion prices, which is what we do.
There's another form of gold,
the new "collector" gold that consists of two toned or reverse
toned proof strike gold Eagles. I could mint something similar for the
cost of about $600 in new dies, but why bother. If collectors want to
pay outrageous premiums for shiny new two toned gold, let them, but I'm not
joining that party.
Likewise, when it's my money,
I don't have to buy old comic books at outrageous prices, I don't have to buy
old stamps at outrageous prices, I don't have to buy antiques at outrageous
prices, and I don't have to buy old or new gold at outrageous prices either.
And I won't.
This works to the advantage of
people who think they know the collector coin, rare coin, or numismatic
trades, who can find "real bargains" at real bullion shops, where
things are not marked up to outrageous prices.
Now, allow me to summarize a few arguments from my last letter on
confiscation.
http://silverstockreport.com/2008/confiscation.html
The real confiscation is
inflation. At a 20% inflation rate, that's worse than the government
stealing everything in every 5th home in America, including the home and all
the investments. I'll say it's worse because that kind of inflation
creates economic distortions that create bad investment decisions by the
remainder of the population.
But think about this!
Government is not likely to confiscate silver and gold, when the government
is making and selling silver and gold Eagles coins!
The US government makes 30-40
million silver Eagles per year now, and 1 million gold Eagles. At
$20/oz., that's about $800 million in silver, and $1200 million in gold.
Government is not likely to
confiscate silver and gold for the budget when the budget deficit is in the
trillions, which is over $1,000,000 million, or a million million. The
value of silver and the gold is simply not even remotely close to being
enough to help. Silver and gold prices would have to be about 100 to
1000 times higher for confiscation to even begin to help plug the current
government deficit, let alone pay the entire budget.
The US annual budget is $3
trillion, and all the gold in all the world is barely $6 trillion. The
government would have to confiscate every single gram, ounce, and kilo of
gold in the entire world, and it would barely fund the US government for two
years, and then the government would be bankrupt all over again! This
is why gold cannot help our government, not at today's low gold prices and
not at today's huge government size.
Are "collector"
coins not confiscable? It's a common question.
In reality, everything is
confiscable, and nothing is confiscable. Let me explain.
In the legal sense of today's
insane world, the US government has executive orders ready to be put into
effect, that in the case of a national emergency, say they can confiscate
your home, your car, your investments, and even your body to be put into
government work camps. Do you think that if you had collector coins,
that you would be exempt from the work camps when the time comes?
The only thing standing in the way of that is the second amendment, and the
fact that too many of us own guns, and would never go for it. So, in
that sense, even your lawn chair and your bed sheets are confiscable, but not
really, since they can try to take them, but won't get very far!
On the other hand, in the
Godly legal sense, nothing you own is confiscable, because your things belong
to you, and nobody else. It's absurd beyond reason that some government
thugs, if they ever could get their hands on your gold, which they cannot,
would go through it piece by piece, sorting out what they can take and cannot
take. Absurd beyond reason.
Finally, don't trust any sort of third party storage program, as even if they
do have the gold, because then all of that will be the first to be
confiscated if the government does issue a confiscation order. And
that's the only kind of gold that has ever been confiscated.
One last point. The issue of confiscation is a big issue to the
billionaires of the world. As individuals, they are easy to prosecute,
or raid, or make an example of. But I know one multi billionaire who
has a security force of 80,000 different people, most of whom do not know one
another, and can't be traced. That billionaire is you, my collective
readers. Your gold and silver cannot be confiscated; you are too
numerous, too well armed, and too well hidden among a nation of 80 million
gun owners!
Another big point that the Bible makes. Righteous people, by their very
presence in the world, end up restraining evil. That's my
reading of 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2.
http://bibleprophesy.org/2thessalonians2.htm
The mere action of not buying into paper money fraud, and by buying real
silver and gold, limits government tyranny via theft of people's money
through the printing press.
So, to sum up. If you
don't want the government to steal your wealth, get bullion gold close to the
spot price.
Our prices typically range from 5-10% over the spot price, which is much more
reasonable than 15-100% premiums over the spot price.
We run no scams. We run no storage program, we offer no certificates,
we offer no leverage programs. When you call our staff, they will
patiently answer your questions about all our bullion products, and help you
place an order for real silver and gold that we will ship to you usually the
same day that your wire transfer will arrive.
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