What’s the deal with the gold seizure of 1933?
It was a stupid plan cooked up by Franklin Roosevelt and his agriculture secretary Henry Wallace. Roosevelt was full of stupid plans and this was one of his dumbest. In a nutshell, the idea was by seizing gold and breaking the gold standard they could cause inflation which would bring prices back up and save the economy. Like virtually all New Deal ideas, it was a complete failure and made things worse. Gold was in fact illegal for Americans to own (except for jewelry form) until 1974 when these restrictions were ended.
