[OT] why was private gold ownership made illegal in the US?

Patrick Chkoreff patrick at loom.cc
Wed Jul 3 07:36:30 PDT 2002


> > Roosevelt needed to in effect devalue the dollar during the Great
> > Depression.  ....
> > However doing a straight devaluation was politically unacceptable
> > at the time.  Because the dollar was pegged to gold, devaluing the
> > dollar meant in effect increasing the value of gold in terms of dollars.

Roosevelt did devalue the dollar.  On January 31, 1934, he issued an 
Executive Order which devalued the dollar from 23.22 grains of gold down to 
13.71 grains.  That was a 59% devaluation.

As you say, devaluing the dollar did increase the value of gold in terms of 
dollars.  The value of gold in terms of dollars jumped from $20.67 to 
$35.00, an increase of 69%.

>Roosevelt did not have the advantage
> > of modern economics and he made many economic mistakes which prolonged
> > the depression, but devaluing the dollar was not one of them.

Yeah, good thing Roosevelt didn't make the mistake of devaluing the 
dollar!  Whew!  :-)


> > Americans could be living in a People's Republic today.
> > Confiscating gold was clearly the lesser of the evils.

Yes, the only way to avoid communism was to devalue the dollar and make 
possession of a yellow metal punishable by fine and imprisonment.  Anybody 
can see that.  :-)

Seriously though, we didn't avoid communism at all.  FDR was our first 
communist president.


-- Patrick

P.S.  http://www.strike-the-root.com/columns/Chkoreff/chkoreff1.html





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