Why Was the 1933 Confiscation of Gold A “Good Thing?”

Why Was the 1933 Confiscation of Gold A “Good Thing?”

The confiscation of the gold was for two reasons. First, FDR was changing the monetary system from one where there was no distinction domestically from internationally. Gold would freely circulate without restriction. Therefore, the confiscation of gold was altering the monetary system moving to a two-tier monetary system with gold only used in international transactions. Consequently, FDR confiscated gold to move to a two-tier system.

What FDR then did was confiscate gold. Ironically, this move was intended to target the bankers rather than the public, as the hunt for spare change is now directed at individuals. FDR sought to prevent the bankers from making a profit and to transfer that profit to the state while funding the New Deal.

FDR had his Brains Trust composed of lawyers who argued for austerity, exactly as they do in Europe today. They were horrified at such a devaluation because they could not understand money and argued to support the bankers. This is the very same policy of the Troika in Europe today –– screw the people and support the bankers. So the confiscation of gold was NOT a door to door hunt for gold from the people, but it was the confiscation of gold from the bankers who could not hide it.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/history/ancient-economies/why-was-the-1933-confiscation-of-gold-a-good-thing/

Did FDR confiscate Americans’ gold in 1933?

https://www.usmoneyreserve.com/news/executive-insights/did-fdr-confiscate-americans-gold-in-1933/

Roosevelt's Gold Program

1933

The Roosevelt administration's policies in 1933-34 regarding gold and dollars were both controversial and consequential.

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/roosevelts-gold-program

FDR’s War on Wall Street

Excerpt from, “Clash of the Two Americas volume 4: The Anglo-Venetian Roots of the Deep State”

By Matthew Ehret

https://a.co/d/4DpXECB

The new president laid down the gauntlet in his inaugural speech on March 4th saying: “The money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit”. FDR declared a war on Wall Street on several levels, beginning with his support of the Pecorra Commission which sent thousands of bankers to prison, and exposed the criminal activities of the top tier of Wall Street’s power structure who manipulated the depression, buying political offices and pushing fascism. Ferdinand Pecorra who ran the commission called out the deep state when he said “this small group of highly placed financiers, controlling the very springs of economic activity, holds more real power than any similar group in the United States.”

Pecorra’s highly publicized success empowered FDR to impose sweeping regulation in the form of 1) Glass-Steagall bank separation, 2) bankruptcy re-organization and 3) the creation of the Security Exchange Commission to oversee Wall Street. Most importantly, FDR disempowered the London-controlled Federal Reserve by installing his own man as Chair (Industrialist Mariner Eccles) who forced it to obey national commands for the first time since 1913, while creating an “alternative” lending mechanism outside of Fed control called the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which became the number one lender to infrastructure in America throughout the 1930s.

One of the most controversial policies for which FDR is demonized today was his abolishment of the gold standard.

The gold standard itself constricted the money supply to a strict exchange of gold per paper dollar, thus preventing the construction of internal improvements needed to revive industrial capacity and put the millions of unemployed back to work for which no financial resources existed. Its manipulation by international financiers made it a weapon of destruction rather than creation at this time. Since commodity prices had fallen lower than the costs of production, it was vital to increase the price of goods under a form of “controlled inflation” so that factories and farms could become solvent and unfortunately the gold standard held that back. FDR imposed protective tariffs to favor agro-industrial recovery on all fronts ending years of rapacious free trade. FDR stated his political-economic philosophy in 1934: “the old fallacious notion of the bankers on the one side and the government on the other side, as being more or less equal and independent units, has passed away. Government by the necessity of things must be the leader, must be the judge, of the conflicting interests of all groups in the community, including bankers.”

The Real New Deal

Once liberated from the shackles of the central banks, FDR and his allies were able to start a genuine recovery by restoring confidence in banking. Within 31 days of his bank holiday, 75% of banks were operational and the FDIC was created to insure deposits. Four million people were given immediate work, and hundreds of libraries, schools and hospitals were built and staffed- All funded through the RFC. FDR’s first fireside chat was vital in rebuilding confidence in the government and banks, serving even today as a strong lesson in banking which central bankers don’t want you to learn about. From 1933-1939, 45,000 infrastructure projects were built. The many “local” projects were governed, like China’s Belt and Road Initiative today, under a “grand design” which FDR termed the “Four Quarters” featuring zones of megaprojects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority area in the south east, the Columbia River Treaty zone on the northwest, the St Laurence Seaway zone on the North east, and Hoover Dam/Colorado zone on the Southwest. These projects were transformative in ways money could never measure as the Tennessee area’s literacy rose from 20% in 1932 to 80% in 1950, and racist backwater holes of the south became the bedrock for America’s aerospace industry due to the abundant and cheap hydropower.

Wall Street Sabotages the New Deal

Those who criticize the New Deal today ignore the fact that its failures have more to do with Wall Street sabotage than anything intrinsic to the program. For example, JP Morgan tool Lewis Douglass (U.S. Budget Director) forced the closure of the Civil Works Administration in 1934 resulting in the firing of all 4 million workers. Wall Street did everything it could to choke the economy at every turn. In 1931, NY banks’ loans to the real economy amounted to $38.1 billion which dropped to only $20.3 billion by 1935. Where NY banks had 29% of their funds in US bonds and securities in 1929, this had risen to 58% which cut off the government from being able to issue productive credit to the real economy. When, in 1937, FDR’s Treasury Secretary persuaded him to cancel public works to see if the economy “could stand on its own two feet”, Wall Street pulled credit out of the economy collapsing the Industrial production index from 110 to 85 erasing seven years’ worth of gain, while steel fell from 80% capacity back to depression levels of 19%. Two million jobs were lost and the Dow Jones lost 39% of its value. This was no different from kicking the crutches out from a patient in rehabilitation and it was not lost on anyone that those doing the kicking were openly supporting Fascism in Europe. Bush patriarch Prescott Bush, then representing Brown Brothers Harriman was found guilty for trading with the enemy in 1942!