Verboten

It means "forbidden" in German, and there are many "forbiddens" in our lifetime. Adultery, prohibition, and drugs instantly come to mind, but there are others. Did you know that a simple poker game is illegal in most places? Any gambling is illegal, unless of course, it is with a state sponsored lottery, or in places where gambling is legal, such as Nevada or in Indian casinos. It is forbidden to drive over the speed limit, drive in the left lane unless passing, (I'd love to choke those who do), and shine high beams in oncoming traffic. Some members in Congress, undoubtedly under pressure from drug companies, are trying to make vitamins and other holistic cures forbidden. May they rot in hell. So what does this have to do with the price of cheese in Cambodia? Just this.

At least a couple of times a week, someone asks me, "What will happen if they confiscate our gold again?" I sigh, and forward a column or two I have already written on this subject. They can be obtained by going to the bottom of this, and clicking on other columns I have written for GOLD-EAGLE.com. There must be over 150 of them, and thanks to GOLD-EAGLE for saving them and making them available. Briefly though, if the US were going to confiscate your gold, don't you think they'd stop selling it first? Don't you think they'd seize the mines in the US, and prohibit its import? They'd have a difficult time finding everyone who has a few Krugerrands, now, wouldn't they? We still have the Fourth Amendment, don't we? But how about forbidding its purchase? Suppose they forbid selling and owning gold?

I'd love for that to happen, but it won't. If a stupid government ever passed a law forbidding the selling and owning gold, (not confiscating it), it would be about as successful an effort or law, as making drugs, poker games, adultery, speeding, or taking vitamin C forbidden. After all, the world's oldest profession happens to be prostitution, and efforts at stopping that are futile. Remember this about prostitution also: When it is legal, as in certain counties in Nevada or overseas, prostitutes are usually clean, attractive, and reasonably priced…I hear. (I've never indulged!) Then, on street corners around the land, they are expensive, often trashy, etc. They have to be expensive, as they have to avoid the law, and often pay fines or go to jail. Legal things are reasonably priced, and illegal ones, are mostly rip-offs.

Drugs? I have never done them either, but I am quite certain that if one could buy them legally, the dope sellers would quickly be out of business, and those who wished to consume them, could buy them at reasonable prices in "DRUG" stores, as used to be the case. Where do you think they got their name? Because drugs were legal at one time. "Coke" is either a drug or a drink, and the drink used to have the drug in it, and hence the name. If one is a drug addict, or even just wants some, it has to be obtained from a dealer on the street. Is it going to be reasonably priced, or even clean and not poison? No guarantees, of course, because the law must be dealt with, cops paid off, and all that goes with it. Drugs are terribly overpriced, and certainly not uniform in quality, because they are ILLEGAL, or forbidden. One takes a chance buying them at exorbitant prices, because of their illegality. If one could walk into a drug store and buy them, they would be as reasonable as aspirin probably, and certainly safe and pure.

The comparisons about other verbotens are endless, but drugs, moonshiners, and hookers will do to illustrate my point. Now, suppose it became illegal to sell and own gold and silver? They would instantly go "underground," as are drugs and prostitutes. Would you be able to call me, and get pure gold and silver coins and bars from me with a 1.5% markup, which includes shipping? Of course not. The hoodlums would take over, and produce fake stuff, impure stuff, and the prices would be astronomical. Every horrible thing that went on during prohibition, would happen with silver and gold. People wanted alcohol, and it was forbidden. Did they get it? Of course, and not only did they get it, but alcohol consumption actually went up during prohibition. Who got rich? The underworld, because they took chances in providing it. As it is, buying gold and silver, is as easy as picking up the phone, ordering it, sending a check, and having it delivered. It is competitive as to price. Some firms are higher than others, and some give lousy service or hold checks too long, but that's true in most industries. Used and new cars are the same. Some dealers are more reliable and reasonable than others. Some dealers give better service, but selling cars, and gold and silver are not forbidden by law.

There are no fake Krugerrands or Gold Eagles around, because it is legal to own and sell them. When a stupid government decides to make something "illegal," it is usually on the pretense of protecting you from your own folly. They have to protect you from those nasty hookers and habit forming drugs or alcohol. You have to obey the speed limit, because of a fictitious danger in not doing so. So far, the government hasn't decided to protect you from those precious metals dealers, car salesmen, or purveyors of vitamins and minerals. Suppose they made cigarettes illegal? Can you imagine what would happen? Home made cigarettes with fake or poor tobacco, and incredibly priced. Tobacco farmers would sell their stuff just like the bootleggers and moonshiners used to do. Remember the films about the rum runners? Robert Mitchum racing souped up Fords, with whiskey in the trunk, and outrunning the revenuers? If cigarettes were made illegal, (to protect you, of course), all hell would break loose. It boggles the imagination to think what nicotine addicts would do to get a smoke.

A government protecting you from your own folly, is absurd. Gambling, alcohol, drugs, AIDS, and syphilis, aren't the same as gold and silver, of course. Gold and silver are merely tangible, compact things of historic value, which have been used as real money for thousands of years. Buying gold and silver, is the same thing as buying an antique dresser or Model A Ford. Both are tangibles, and both likely to be re-sold at a much higher price in the future, if one bought them at the right price. Gold and silver are tangible methods of getting the hell out of the fake money known as dollars, francs, pesos, yen, and even euros.

If almighty government ever forbids owning or selling gold and silver, it will be not to protect you from yourself, but to protect itself from abandonment of its fake currencies. If the buck slides into virtual zero value, government will probably invent a new currency. If the dollar completes its inevitable decline to a laughing stock, government may be upset, and try to make owning or selling real money illegal. When that happens people, your real money will go underground, and you can really clean up. Pay your mortgage off with a couple of Krugerrands, sold on a street corner to someone who wants them so bad, that they'll pay your price.

By that time, gold will be thousands of dollars an ounce, and a gallon of gas probably a couple of hundred bucks. When that happens, people will be frantic to buy anything that is tangible, just to escape dollars. So you'll sell your Krugerrands for thousands of dollars each, and buy a lot of real estate for a few coins, a Mercedes for a half ounce of gold. or whatever. Underground? I can't wait, but I doubt that it will ever happen. If it does, we're in the chips. Illegal alcohol, drugs, and female bodies go for, and went for, many, many times their worth on an open market. All you've got to do, is make something illegal, and this makes those who own it get really rich by selling theirs, or even dealing in it. Do I exaggerate? I think not, unless your believe in dollars. If you have great faith in dollars and the outfit that prints them, I trust you are shocked at how many it takes to buy something, as opposed to its price a decade ago. Doesn't a $4 pound of butter shake your confidence? Doesn't a $2 gallon of gas upset you, when it was 20 cents when I was a kid? Doesn't a million dollar home of 2,000 square feet in a nice neighborhood of a dozen cities upset you? My Mom and Dad bought a 6 bedroom home at 1811 Kenyon St, NW, in Washington DC, in 1935 for $3500, and it now is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's row house! Shouldn't this shake your trust in the so-called "almighty" dollar?

Why do people take actions to protect themselves from inclement weather, bad wiring, leaky exhaust, and bald tires, but still stay in dollars with their surplus assets? I will never know. Protect yourself.