The thought of government seizing private assets is enough to...

The thought of government seizing private assets is enough to set blood pressure soaring.

If the three levels of Oz Govt. was drowning in debt, it would have many creative options available to deal with the problem. Seizing physical gold would unlikely be the best one.

We just need to look at what the Federal, States and local governments have been doing for the past two decades and we can get a fair idea. The justification for raising money to deal with the Bne/Qld drought, Bne/Toowoomba floods, Qld tropical hurricanes, Victorian fires, white elephant projects, etc. all boils down to the same money depleting action called by different names: tax, levy, future-proofing, global warming-proofing, sale of assets, privatisation, smart metering, one-off this, time-limited that, it's-not-a-tax-here, it's-not-a-levy-there...

Politicians would still want their cake and eat it no matter the times. To seize gold or other assets would create resentment amongst the voting public = political suicide = consignment into the trash heap of history.

A far better idea would be to let us continue our lives under the illusion that we are freely holding onto our cherished assets. Then erode it away slowly but surely under the guise of the many names.

In response, we have to work harder and harder to preserve our hard-won assets, thereby creating a very Darwinian society. The ranting conspiracy theorists call it the New World Order, which is based on the tried and tested divide-and-rule approach. A century ago, when the Marxist broached a parallel analysis, they created a powerful political shift. A sign of the times, indeed.