In one of the most volatile trading periods since the global financial crisis, August saw a massive $5.7 trillion erased from the value of stocks worldwide. No major stock market was left unscathed and the risk of financial and economic contagion became evident again.

There are growing concerns internationally that in the event of another Wall Street or global stock market crash and a new systemic crisis – a Eurozone debt crisis or another  Lehman Brothers collapse – there could be enforced bank closures or extended bank holidays in the EU and U.S. as seen in Greece recently.

In this scenario, deposit boxes and vaults in U.S. banks and financial institutions could be sealed and gold confiscated again.

There is a legal precedent for this. April 5th, 1933 – at the height of the Great Depression – was the day when U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt instructed all American citizens to hand over all their gold coins and bars to the Federal Government.