The Day America Banned Gold Possession
Imagine if the government told you overnight: "All the gold you own in your home is now illegal. Turn it in or you'll be imprisoned for ten years!"
Doesn't that sound like a science fiction movie scenario?
That's exactly what happened in America in the spring of 1933. Specifically, on April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the famous Executive Order 6102, giving citizens until May 1, 1933, to surrender their gold coins, bars, and certificates to the Federal Reserve.
In a state of panic and fear, citizens lined up in endless queues at banks to hand over their savings. The government took the gold from the people at a price of $20.67 per ounce. Just a few months later, with the passage of the Gold Reserve Act in January 1934, Roosevelt raised the official price of gold to $35 per ounce. This meant that the country devalued the dollar overnight, taking about 41% of the purchasing power of their gold and transferring that value directly into the state treasury!
Those who refused to hand over their gold were threatened with a fine of $10,000 (a huge sum at the time, equivalent to the value of several houses) or imprisonment for 10 years.
According to analysts, Roosevelt's genius lay in this government intervention, as the state possessed the funds to initiate the "New Deal" (TKZ) program, for which Roosevelt became famous worldwide. The past was thus closed, and private ownership of gold in America remained illegal until December 31, 1974.
However, to secure America's power that same year, they concluded a new deal and imposed the petrodollar on the world. The dollar was now pegged to oil, not gold as before, thereby guaranteeing America's perpetual economic dominance over the world and elevating the value of the dollar.