Current price of gold - knock on effects

Just Wondering,
With the current price of gold so high does anyone think their governments might start taking a snoop into our hobby and create new stricter laws?
I heard something along these lines from a guy who works for our Civil Service.



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I pulled about 1/4 ounce out of the creek in a little over 2 hours last weekend.  By my figuring, that's about 300 bucks worth at today's prices.  Am I going to sell it and give the government a share in taxes?  Hell no.  It's going in the mason jar with the rest of the gold I've found in the past.  In the US it isn't income until you trade it for cash.  Gold is just a commodity, although a valuable commodity, since the US is no longer on the gold standard for it's monetary system.  There's no legal requirement or need to report it as income until you sell it.  I'm not planning on selling mine ever.  When the economy completely collapses, I'll use it to trade for goods and services like our forefathers did.  If the economy happens to last through the rest of my lifetime, then the kids are gonna get a couple of mason jars full of gold, and they can do whatever they want with it.

That is of course unless I hit a major strike.  If I find that 10" thick vein that runs for 200' and can make myself rich for life off of it, I'll gladly close down my shop and start writing tax checks to the government.

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,14439.msg92400.html#msg92400

Strange thing about governments is that it doesn't necessarily have to be "income" for them to figure out a way to interfere in it and make money from it.....they could just severely restrict the hunting areas and require expensive licenses to legally participate in treasure hunting and/or prospecting---with or without a metal detector.

(not that I expect things to get that drastic, but I am enough of a realist to know what is possible, even if it isn't likely)

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Current law in the US is that any transcaction between a vendor and a customer that exceeds $600 requires the business to obtain a certain form (W9) from the seller, and then submit a certain different form (1099) to the seller at the end of the year showing how much the customer paid that vendor for tax purposes.  That $600 is cumulative though, so if you bring me $2 worth of gold per day every day during the year, I'll have to issue you a 1099 at the end of the year in order to stay in compliance with our highly complex and completely idiotic tax code, and you'll have to pay taxes on everything I give you for your gold.  Don't sell it though, and there's no way they can tax it.

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,14439.msg92487.html#msg92487

Right to a certain extent... and that is what I had insinuated in my earlier post.  Gold has an intrinsic value due to it's rarity.  The "value" of gold may actually slightly decrease with time due to how much of it is available though.  As more is pulled out of the ground, there is more to go around, so it's value is naturally depreciated, albeit very slowly because there's not a whole lot being pulled out of the ground. 

Say there was only 1 gram of gold for every person on the planet, and that's all the gold there was available.  If suddenly somebody found a vein that was able to supply everybody on the planet 2 grams, the gold would be valued at half as much.

The "price" however is certainly tied to the value of the paper currency, because they can print the paper a whole lot faster than they can dig the gold out of the ground.  And the more paper they print, the more gold will be worth, because gold is a limited commodity and paper is not. 

That video was a pretty good explanation of the economic forces that drive prices, but it doesn't go far enough.  The value of anything is based on it's relatative value to something else.  The more gold that is in circulation, the more gold you'll need to buy a gallon of milk.  The same with paper, especially when it's not backed by anything.

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