Rumour of Gold buying restrictions

A rumour is going round in the Private Wealth/Off-shore investment area that Austria has instituted restrictions on buying Gold.

Here is Bob Bauman writing today in “The Sovereign Investor” newsletter with one example of the rumour mill.

Restrictions on Gold Buying?

By Bob Bauman JD, Legal Counsel, The Sovereign Society

Dear Sovereign Investor,

Maybe you have heard or seen the rumor that’s been flying around the Internet for the last week…There is a “secret” European Union limitation on gold sales! Indeed this rumor got very specific: “Austrian banks have now been ordered to restrict the sale of gold and silver bullion purchases and are limiting personal acquisitions of precious metals to €15,000 (US$20,243) at a time, or 11 ounces of gold at today’s prices.” Wow!

According to the source he later references,

According to the bank representatives and manager we spoke with,Austrian banks have now been ordered to restrict the sale of gold and silver bullion purchases and are limiting personal acquisitions of precious metals to 15,000€ (approximately $20,700 USD) at a time, or 11 ounces of gold at today’s prices.

If the restriction really do exist – I have not been able to verify – then I suspect this is a move to ward off or make harder, capital flight. Of course moving money is as easy as the press of a bank’s keyboard. So why buy gold? One answer is that for those who don’t want tax questions or official ‘snooping’ it makes sense to buy gold and move money in a way that takes the money off the grid.

It is also possible that the Austrian banks are concerned that they might not have enough physical gold and don’t want that sort of headline. Either way what is most interesting is the rumour itself regardless of the reality.

‘The Sovereign Investor’ is typical of a whole world of publications pandering to the wealthy who constantly imagine that ‘socialists’ if not outright commies have infiltrated every government and are intent on robbing the innocent weathy.

They talk constantly of ‘getting off the grid”. They write about which countries offer second passports with the fewest questions. Which jurisdictions have the best facilities for investing and for buying ‘safe haven’ properties to which the wealthy can retreat to when/if  it looks like their governments might start to ‘victimize’ the wealthy.

Panama is one place they talk about in glowing terms. Money and those with lots of it, is welcome there. Panamais happy to offer servies which puts money beyond the reach of ‘intrusive’ American tax authorites. Recently an article professed to also like many things about Paraguay or Uruguay I forget which.

While you are worried about your job, your community and your country, the ‘Sovereign Investor’ extols the virtue of getting out, on a second passport and taking your money with you.

Gold restrictions were put in place in the US in the Great Depression and people still talk darkly about it. That they are talking about it now and peddling rumours suggests that there is a fear of popular unrest. And in that I think they are right. I think if Greece does find it has even more debts than it has admitted and if it also admits, what we all know, that the government has NOT been able to force actual implementation of the full range of austerity measures and so the debt has not been cut as promised, then default will come and it will not be ebntirely’orderly’ and banks will find their bonds are cut by quite a bit more than the ‘agreed’ 21%.  In that case the rich will want to get their bonuses and accumulated wealth out in case they are required to be ‘all in it together’.

Bueaucrats and medling politicians can get control of banks and their keyboards. But they can’t get the gold you drive across the border to put in a safe deposti box somewhere that asks fewer questions.