Is There Gold in Fort Knox?
by Constance Gustke | Jan 20, 2010 | 10 Comments
Protected by a 109,000-acre U.S. Army post in Kentucky sits one of the Federal Reserves most secure assets and its only gold depository: the 73-year-old Fort Knox vault. Its glittering gold bricks, totaling 147.3 million ounces (thats about $168 billion at current prices), are stacked inside massive granite walls topped with a bombproof roof. Or are they?
Its hard to know for sure. Few people have been inside Fort Knox, a highly classified bunker ringed by fences and multiple alarms and guarded by Apache helicopter gunships. When the U.S. finished building Fort Knox in 1937, the gold was shipped in on a special nine-car train manned by machine gunners and loaded onto Army trucks protected by a U.S. Cavalry brigade. And the fort has been pretty much off limits since then. A U.S. Mint spokesman said in an email statement to MoneyWatch that the accounting firm KPMG, which audits the Mint, has been present in the vault at Fort Knox. The Mint wont comment on exactly how much gold is in there, though.
Thats why Ron Paul (R-Texas), a 2008 presidential candidate known for his libertarian streak, wants to have a look around. Paul introduced a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, which includes Fort Knoxs gold. My attitude is, lets just find out whats there, he says.
http://moneywatch.bnet.com/economic-news/article/is-there-gold-in-fort-knox/385523/
“the 73-year-old Fort Knox vault. Its glittering gold bricks, totaling 147.3 million ounces (thats about $168 billion at current prices)”
There is over $1.5T in US cash currency.
For those wanting to return to a gold standard, we’re about 1,473 million ounces short.