The real value of the gold standard was explained clearly in an essay by young economist,Alan Greenspan, the man who much later became the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. “In the absence of the gold standard there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation,” wrote Greenspan.

Without a gold standard, there is no safe store of value.

“The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves,” Greenspan wrote.
“This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirade against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the ‘hidden’ confiscation of wealth,” he wrote.

“Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold  standard,” wrote Greenspan.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government has often worked to deny people a sense of economic security. In 1933, for example, President Franklin Roosevelt made it illegal for citizens to own gold. Then on August 15, 1971, Nixon’s Executive Order killed the US gold-standard currency
and replaced it with a fiat currency that has no guaranteed convertibility.

The result of printing of dollars with no gold standard to back the paper has increased uncertainty and fear among citizens. US citizens are especially concerned about their retirement accounts. If the dollar continues to be devalued, the value of their accounts will decrease a lot.When the new devalued dollar is introduced, these accounts will be even more greatly reduced.

This is the most direct threat to your wealth ever. What will be the final straw that forces the government’s hand into your retirement accounts? The honest answer is “’who knows.” It could be a number of things. It is indeed possible that some threat from an outside force, like China’s retaliation against a weak dollar, can cause Washington to nationalize your retirement.