Options
something to ponder?
offthehorse
Posts: 127
You never know what I will come up with next...I found this under a Lee Certified Coin eBay ad...note to those concerned...I'm just looking, not buying...
U.S. Asserts Power to Seize Private Gold, Silver
August 23, 2005 P>NewsMax.com Wires
MANCHESTER, Conn.-- The U.S. Government has the authority to prohibit the private possession of gold and silver coin and bullion by U.S. citizens during wartime, and, during wartime and declared emergencies, to freeze their ownership of shares of mining companies, the Treasury Department has told the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee.
But gold and silver owners aren't alone in such jeopardy. For the U.S. Government claims the authority in declared emergencies to seize or freeze just about everything else that might be considered a financial instrument.
The Treasury Department's assertions came in a letter to GATA dated August 12 and written by Sean M. Thornton, chief counsel for the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, who replied to questions GATA posed to the department in January.
It took GATA six months and some prodding to get answers from the Treasury, but the Treasury's reply, when it came, was remarkably comprehensive and candid.
The government's authority to interfere with the ownership of gold, silver, and mining shares arises, Thornton wrote, from the Trading With the Enemy Act, which became law in 1917 during World War I and applies during declared wars, and from 1977's International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which can be applied without declared wars.
Currency and Securities
While the Trading With the Enemy Act authorizes the government to interfere with the ownership of gold and silver particularly, it also applies to all forms of currency and all securities. So the Treasury official stressed in his letter to GATA that the act could be applied not just to shares of gold and silver mining companies but to the shares of all companies in which there is a foreign ownership interest.
Further, there is no requirement in the law that the targets of the government's interference must have some connection to the declared enemies of the United States, nor even some connection to foreign ownership. Anything that can be construed as a financial instrument, no matter how innocently it has been used, is subject to seizure under the Trading With the Enemy Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Having just gone through a controversy about a Supreme Court decision about government's power of eminent domain, most Americans may be surprised to learn that the Trading With the Enemy Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act could expropriate them instantly and far more broadly without any of the due process extended to parties in eminent domain cases. All that is needed is a presidential proclamation of an emergency of some kind -- and of course Americans lately have been living in a state of perpetual emergency.
When the Trading With the Enemy Act was passed in 1917, gold and silver formed part of the official currency of the United States and were essential to ordinary commerce, so perhaps an argument could be made then against "hoarding," even if "hoarding" could not be well defined. That is no longer the case; the United States has officially disavowed gold and silver as money and they no longer have a meaningful role in commerce. (GATA is working on that.)
So gold and silver investors may want to ask their members of Congress to seek repeal of the statutes that give the government the authority to interfere with the private ownership of gold and silver, emergencies or not.
And ordinary citizens with no particular interest in gold and silver may want to ask their members of Congress to reconsider these statutes simply for being wildly tyrannical.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/8/22/200930.shtml
any comments?
barn
U.S. Asserts Power to Seize Private Gold, Silver
August 23, 2005 P>NewsMax.com Wires
MANCHESTER, Conn.-- The U.S. Government has the authority to prohibit the private possession of gold and silver coin and bullion by U.S. citizens during wartime, and, during wartime and declared emergencies, to freeze their ownership of shares of mining companies, the Treasury Department has told the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee.
But gold and silver owners aren't alone in such jeopardy. For the U.S. Government claims the authority in declared emergencies to seize or freeze just about everything else that might be considered a financial instrument.
The Treasury Department's assertions came in a letter to GATA dated August 12 and written by Sean M. Thornton, chief counsel for the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, who replied to questions GATA posed to the department in January.
It took GATA six months and some prodding to get answers from the Treasury, but the Treasury's reply, when it came, was remarkably comprehensive and candid.
The government's authority to interfere with the ownership of gold, silver, and mining shares arises, Thornton wrote, from the Trading With the Enemy Act, which became law in 1917 during World War I and applies during declared wars, and from 1977's International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which can be applied without declared wars.
Currency and Securities
While the Trading With the Enemy Act authorizes the government to interfere with the ownership of gold and silver particularly, it also applies to all forms of currency and all securities. So the Treasury official stressed in his letter to GATA that the act could be applied not just to shares of gold and silver mining companies but to the shares of all companies in which there is a foreign ownership interest.
Further, there is no requirement in the law that the targets of the government's interference must have some connection to the declared enemies of the United States, nor even some connection to foreign ownership. Anything that can be construed as a financial instrument, no matter how innocently it has been used, is subject to seizure under the Trading With the Enemy Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Having just gone through a controversy about a Supreme Court decision about government's power of eminent domain, most Americans may be surprised to learn that the Trading With the Enemy Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act could expropriate them instantly and far more broadly without any of the due process extended to parties in eminent domain cases. All that is needed is a presidential proclamation of an emergency of some kind -- and of course Americans lately have been living in a state of perpetual emergency.
When the Trading With the Enemy Act was passed in 1917, gold and silver formed part of the official currency of the United States and were essential to ordinary commerce, so perhaps an argument could be made then against "hoarding," even if "hoarding" could not be well defined. That is no longer the case; the United States has officially disavowed gold and silver as money and they no longer have a meaningful role in commerce. (GATA is working on that.)
So gold and silver investors may want to ask their members of Congress to seek repeal of the statutes that give the government the authority to interfere with the private ownership of gold and silver, emergencies or not.
And ordinary citizens with no particular interest in gold and silver may want to ask their members of Congress to reconsider these statutes simply for being wildly tyrannical.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/8/22/200930.shtml
any comments?
barn
you can check out of coins anytime you like...but can you really leave?
0
Comments
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
I feel that a safety deposit box in a bank, will be the first to be confiscated.
In Michigan growing up, there are thousands of stories of old geezers who did
not trust banks and buried their money on their farm.
I wonder why they felt like that???
Now I don't trust most politicians, Republicans included.
But if I had to bet on one or the other confiscating property, it would be the Socialist/Democrat party.
Friends don't let friends vote Democrat.
John Marnard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 235ff