The Great Silver Heist
This month I thought it would be fun to talk about a little-known yet significant event in silver’s relatively recent history. By recent, I mean the last 90 years.
Remember, silver’s been used as money in some form for over 5,000 years. So, anything in the last century is like…yesterday.
You may already know about U.S. President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6102. As a refresher, I’ll bring you up to speed.
In 1933 the U.S. money supply was limited by the “gold standard” – while the economy was mired in a severe depression. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 required the U.S. dollar (Federal Reserve Notes) be 40% backed by gold. But by the late 1920s, the U.S. Federal Reserve was already bumping up against its credit limit. Most economists and financial historians now believe this limit exacerbated the October 1929 stock market crash – and the ruinous Great Depression that followed. At the time, the gold price was fixed at $20.67 per ounce. So, on April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 into law.
The order outlawed the ‘hoarding’ of gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States. The rationale was
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