4 replies to this topic

[Bob]

I just noticed on Kitco that platinum is only $24 more than gold, so, considering the premiums on gold coins, you can almost get platinum for the price of gold, if you can find any physical for sale.

Since platinum is such a miniscule market compared to gold, I wonder if they would even bother confiscating it.  In the event of a gold confiscation I would expext the price of platinum to soar as people desparately sought out a hard asset to store their wealth.  I know I would.  Hmmm...

[kunery2]

Since platinum spot has been double the gold spot price not all that long ago, their present near-parity and the obscene gold premium does make platinum look good, as you say.  I could be tempted for that reason.

But as for the confiscation angle, I think that''s less compelling.  An obvious gold alternative is silver.  Silver could not possibly be confiscated (too widespread in too many forms with too many industrial uses, etc.) And silver might offer better appreciation potential than gold, as well as potential barter uses in a time of economic chaos.

Even more to the point, though, I''d rate the potential of gold confiscation as vanishingly small.  Today''s economy is utterly different from the 1930''s: gold now represents only a miniscule fraction of wealth; confiscating it might well cost more than the value of metal siezed, and would certainly produce more fanatical fury and furor by gunslinging resistance-crazies than the confiscation project was worth.

It would be far more sophisticated to simply impose a whopping windfall tax on an entire list of commodities, gold, silver, platinum, and others.  The confiscation (without using that word) would be made largely self-enforcing by offering a 25% reward of the tax amount due, payable to anyone who rats out a person making any transaction without paying the tax.

Others see things differently, but on my list of Stuff To Worry About, gold confiscation barely makes it onto the bottom of Page 497.

[TraderJim]

There is not going to be any confiscation.

A 90% Transaction tax on all non-blackmarket sales has been proposed.

PM dealers are required by law to report all transactions.

The Govt. doesn''t want your gold...they just want to stop the non-commodity retail trade.

Legally enforced taxation is the new "confiscation".

[bearlylegal]

make sure they don''t forget about roth-held gold

[Bluzbear]

It won''t happen again.  Who would turn it in?  As far as a 90% tax, huh.. It''s money, the constitution says so. It would be challenged in the supreme court and there would be riots with bs ruling. They would collect very little tax as it would just be traded in other ways and other places. As Fekete says, it will be the dark ages of trading.

I think at this point it is too late to turn back the price no matter the tricks.

The game is over.