When national currencies show weakened trustworthiness - gold can replace currency for trade deals or even currency backing. It is the special qualities as 'money' which give gold (or silver) appeal as the national currencies lose credibility. Real estate or paper assets aren't a replacement 'money' - especially for international trade (eg swapping gold for wheat). I hope that helps a bit to explain what's at stake.
All they'd have to do is clamp down on illegal foreign buyers and they'd probably have oodles more revenue than taking anyone's gold. And you don't piss off any voters, if fact you gain them.
That is the only scenario where I can see a govt need to get their hands on physical gold hoards - they need it to settle international trade because their currency has hyper inflated.
My opinion. Im from argentina. Do you know the australian goverment already take off 30% of your money with the devaluation with the uss dollar? A few years ago 1 au= 1 uss Now 1 au= 0.70 uss Or have you a raise of more than 30% in your job. They dont need to take your gold. They use inflation and devaluation.
Sure the Aussie dollar has dropped a ton vs. the U.S. dollar but it hasn't translated into everything costing more. Just SOME of the things priced in U.S. dollars. I'd note oil is a lot cheaper now as is petrol. Groceries don't seem to have changed much in price with a few exceptions. There isn't really a need for a 30 % increase in wages to maintain the same standard of living. On the other hand, if we travel to the U.S. everything is a lot more expensive, except for everything that has had plunging prices in U.S. dollars.
If you travel outside australia the au value is 30% less than uss dolar. Some currency have more devaluation and some less. You dont see the inflation because australia is in recesion. But give it time.
Even if you stay in Australia, the U.S. dollar is worth more now. The problem for your argument is that a lot of other currencies have dropped in value relative to the U.S. dollar and the price of a lot of the things we buy have dropped relative to the U.S. dollar. The drop of the of the Aussie dollar vs. currencies other than the U.S. dollar has been a lot smaller and in some cases negative (e.g. the Aussie dollar has increased in value vs. The Canadian dollar). So yes, maybe the Aussie dollar buys less than it did 2 years ago, but unless you're spending all your money in the U.S. it is buying anywhere near 30% less.
Confiscating privately owned bullion seems like a slow and clumsy way of dealing with the issue. It would take a lot of labour to go through each safety deposit. Then to go searching from house to house for anything of value... If a situation like that happened wouldn't the potential for it to happen in the imminent future be apparent several weeks to months out? If you had any common sense wouldn't you bury your bullion in the forest or desert if no one knew exactly how much you had? If the government, etc. do know, then you'd take it out of the vault and transform it into less likely to be confiscated assets. From what I've seen, you're vastly more likely to lose the things stored in a vault or safety deposit box to fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, theft, war or neglect than due to government confiscation. Maybe put more effort to within country dispersal of assets than international dispersal. If we're looking at low frequency events, is storing your gold in Singapore a safe bet? Which is more likely... 1.) The Australian government forcefully confiscating privately owned bullion 2.) Malaysia deciding to forcefully retrieve Singapore and in the ensuing battle vaults in Singapore get looted 3.) The territorial battles in the South China sea goes hot and travel to Singapore becomes restricted and the a singapore an government either seizes privately owned bullion or places a ban on exporting assets 4.) Singapore experiences civil unrest and vaults get looted. 5.) Same as above but in Australia
Interesting how most of these storage, pros and cons of SDB, safes etc threads seem to include the government as much, if not more, a risk than sundry thieves and badies. And we don't vote for thieves and badies. Then again.............
