You see, a lot of these large banks play this game where they "effectively" borrow money from the central bank at say 1% APR, and buy US Treasuries at say 2% APR. This is basically a way for the fed to give printed up money to the banks, and to finance the government for free. However, things like gold and silver which are a direct competitor to the US dollar for reserve status are a big threat to their profitability in these trades, so they willingly short the gold market, even if it means risking losses. Other countries around the world who know what's going on go along with this to stock up on their gold reserves at below market costs. Everybody wins, except for the people who want honest money, and who try to protect their savings by using gold.
If you blow up this short trade, then everybody is going to panic into gold. Also, the US central bank can only hope to bail out the losses of the banks by printing dollars, but that will drive the price of gold even higher. Then as the gold price rises, other countries will dump dollars and buy gold for reserves, driving the price even higher. Then, at some point the federal reserve will realize that they have to save the dollar, and you do that by ding, ding, ding, buying gold (and silver) on a massive scale to prop up the value of the currency and implicitly back it with precious metals.
We could literally wake up one morning to find every bank and government in the USA is bankrupt, and the price of gold is over 10000 per oz.
Would we just have to buy at local coin stores to initiate this? Both Gold and Silver are not on any exchange, correct?
In general, investors looking to invest in "gold directly have three choices: they can purchase the physical asset, they can purchase shares of a mutual or exchange-traded fund (ETF) that replicates the price of gold, or they can trade futures and options in the commodities market. Average investors, for example, might buy gold coins, while sophisticated investors implement strategies using options on gold futures."
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/investingingold.asp
Which as we're seeing now is not a good idea if you're a little person and not someone with the right connections. If you cannot touch it it's not a good investment because a piece of paper means nothing when someone else is holding the actual asset and things have fallen apart.
Local coin stores sell, also there are lots of gold dealers on line, there are a few precious metals account services like upma. People who have know how about comdex can do it, they would need to take delivery instead of just taking the cash.