At the current price, one could buy less than one and one-half troy ounces of gold without activating customer ID paperwork, and for businesses – a criminal background check!

This is an additional decline from the €15,000 mandated just two years ago. Set to become law in early 2020, the effect was immediate, as long lines outside a coin shop in Cologne show.

Some of the world's largest banks – including several in Germany – have long made a habit of laundering literally billions of dollars, euros, and assorted financial instruments from questionable customers.

This all begs the question as to how further squeezing "the little man" by imposing onerous reporting over relatively tiny amounts of gold sales is going to accomplish anything constructive.

It turns out that this legislative effort is directly tied to European Union (EU) guidelines laid out in the anti-money laundering directive (AMLD5), requiring member state compliance. And some people wonder why Britain's Labour Party – whose platform proposed adding still more regulatory burdens to the population – recently suffered such a devastating defeat.

Bitcoin.com reports the EU's 5th anti-money laundering directive dictates that "non-transparent assets, accounts, and even private safety deposit boxes will now be subject to state information gathering by law."

A user on Reddit remarked:

"They don't want normal people to bank run their scam paper. Gold and hard assets is how you protect yourself from inflation. They (the governments/banks) want to know every single person that tries to get out of their cage..."

"...Gold is thus seen as one of the final hedges against irresponsible government policy, and the proposed new limits on precious metals, will leave residents of Germany with even fewer options."

A German citizen remarks:

"I live in Germany and the thing is we have had a full-blown shortage going on for weeks now. All these people in the line will go home empty handed. The smart ones have been exchanging paper for gold weeks and months ago... you have these (off-putting) ones who think the supply will wait for them when they lift (themselves up) in the last second. The retailers have been sold out for weeks already. It might clear up in January when the new law is in place, but I am not betting on it. It could also indicate that we are close to something bigger."

 

Check out the full article here: http://bit.ly/2U6YGyU