Gold Confiscation: Straws in the Wind

by David Galland, Managing Director, Casey Research

In the emails that our readers at Casey Research send our way, questions and concerns about the possibility of gold confiscation rank high.

My somewhat standard response is that, yes, it’s possible, but that we should see straws in the wind well before it happened… allowing us to take measures to protect ourselves.

While I don’t want to make too big a deal about it, there have been clear signs of late that the U.S. government is taking an unhealthy interest in your gold.

My recent article “I Smell a VAT” touched on one such straw. The relevant point being that, thanks to a regulation slipped into the healthcare legislation, coin dealers – and all businesses, for that matter – will have to begin reporting any purchases of $600 or more from anyone, including clients selling back their gold.

While I think the overriding intent is to pave the road for the implementation of a value-added tax (VAT), there’s no question that the legislation simultaneously paints a target on the back of the free trade of precious metals.

Then, a couple weeks ago a friend sent me a copy of Mother Jones, an a unapologetically “progressive” mouthpiece with a cover story titled “Glenn Beck’s Golden Fleece.”

And friend and correspondent Lowell sent along an article with an embedded video link to an lengthy ABC News “investigation” by Clintonista George Stephanopoulos that picks up on the Mother Jones story.

Now that you’ve watched the video – and if you don’t, some of what follows won’t make any sense – I’d like to share some observations based on personal experience.

About Coins

Years ago, I headed up the publishing division of a company (that will go unnamed) with a separate division selling coins. I was there when the coin business started, and while not involved, was impressed at its rapid growth in the heady days of the 1970s gold bull market.

Then something happened. While the founder was a strong advocate for hard money and sincere in his intent to do the right thing by his customers, as the coin business grew, he increasingly recruited “professional” managers to run the firm – hired guns whose sole focus was boosting the bottom line and, by so doing, their bonuses. And the business hired more and more “professional” salespeople – the sort of folks who know how to squeeze a client good and hard.

As the company’s sales soared, fueled by hard-hitting marketing, the founder’s good intentions began to weaken under the onrushing flood of cash that began to wash in. In time, the entire conversation at the coin division switched from “What’s good for the customer?” to “What coins can we sell with the biggest mark-up?”

On those occasions when I was invited to comment on what was going on, I did what I could to argue against the corporate culture that had developed, but my impassioned and increasingly angry fights with the managers of the coin division couldn’t win out over the millions in profits being made. As much as I enjoyed my job, the situation became so degraded, I had no choice but to resign.

Now, let me be clear. The company broke no laws and, in fact, did nothing that I suppose most businesses on to a good thing might not do; marketing was generating lots of prospects, and the sales force was selling.

The problem was that the product line had moved from selling highly liquid government-issued gold and silver bullion coins to selling illiquid “modern rarities,” an oxymoron if there ever was one. Whether “proof” Mexican silver dollars, “treasure” coins, or privately minted commemorative coins, the one thing you could be sure of was that the mark-ups were huge.

Which meant that, in the absence of an active collectors market – which, when it comes to “modern rarities,” just doesn’t exist, and never will – the coins were very unlikely to ever provide a reasonable return on investment, let alone be a good asset to preserve capital. Quite the opposite, they were almost certain losers.

Read the rest here.