As the gold price reached $3,000 per troy ounce, the Trump administration may consider revaluing U.S. gold reserves. Despite the fact that calls to audit Fort Knox have died down, the existence of nearly 8,000 tons of gold (worth about $750 billion) held at Fort Knox is still surrounded by mystery. Does the gold at Fort Knox even exist? What is its true origin? What’s driving the federal government’s lack of transparency? Will gold revaluation collapse the U.S. dollar, as so many gold brokers claim? Will gold reserves be used to pay off $37 trillion in U.S. national debt or buy Bitcoin for the newly created Federal Bitcoin Reserve? I discussed these and other questions with Ryan McMaken, economist and executive editor at the Mises Institute.
Ryan McMaken notes that the gold held at Fort Knox was effectively “stolen” from the American public by the U.S. government after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102 in 1933. This order effectively made gold ownership, both in coins and bars, illegal for all Americans and punishable by up to ten years in prison.
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