Effectively confiscating gold

Mish has a take on the Arthur Burns memo to President Ford regarding gold price suppression that is worthwhile. Mish downplays its current significance, suggesting that markets ultimately are stronger than governments. He does provide a valuable caution that all gold investors should heed:

The fear should not be of government to government agreements that can never work in practice, but rather a fear that governments may tax gold sales profits at some phenomenal rate, thereby effectively confiscating gold a second time.

Such a “confiscation” would be relatively easy to impose on ETFs like GLD or SLV. It would be more difficult to impose on physical gold itself.