Half of gold in central banks gone?

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | January 29, 2008 | Jerome R. Corsi

[Man50D]

U.S. central banks may have less than half the gold they claim to possess in their vaults, charges a watchdog group in an ad scheduled for publication in the Wall Street Journal this week.

As WND reported, the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, or GATA, claims the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury are surreptitiously manipulating the country's gold reserves by participating in undisclosed leases, according to an advance copy WND obtained of the ad running in Thursday's edition of the Journal.

GATA believes much of the borrowed gold out on lease will never be returned to the central banks.

"With the demand for gold so strong worldwide, it has become impossible to return much of the leased gold without driving the price to the moon," said GATA's chairman, William J. Murphy III.

"Most observers calculate central bank reserves are supposed to have about 30,000 tons of gold worldwide in their vaults, but we believe the amount of gold actually there may be more like 15,000 tons," Murphy said. "The rest of the gold is gone."

The U.S. Treasury denies the claim, insisting the stock is accounted for regularly.

"We want to expose and stop the manipulation of the gold market by the United States Treasury and Federal Reserve right now," Murphy said.

"The purpose of this ad is to wake people up in the investment world as to what is going on behind the scenes in the U.S. gold and financial markets," Murphy told WND.

He explained GATA has decided to pay the Wall Street Journal $264,000 for a one-time placement of the full page ad in the national edition because the financial press has not covered the story.

[snarks_when_bored]

Let them eat gold.

[txlurker]

Here is what I found:

Congress has specified that a Federal Reserve Bank must hold collateral equal in value to the Federal Reserve notes that the Bank receives. This collateral is chiefly gold certificates and United States securities. This provides backing for the note issue.

The idea was that if the Congress dissolved the Federal Reserve System, the United States would take over the notes (liabilities). This would meet the requirements of Section 411, but the government would also take over the assets, which would be of equal value. Federal Reserve notes represent a first lien on all the assets of the Federal Reserve Banks, and on the collateral specifically held against them.

Federal Reserve notes are not redeemable in gold, silver or any other commodity, and receive no backing by anything This has been the case since 1933. The notes have no value for themselves, but for what they will buy. In another sense, because they are legal tender, Federal Reserve notes are "backed" by all the goods and services in the economy.

http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal-tender.shtml

[em2vn]

In hard times there are 3 things that are more valuable than gold; firepower, food and medicine.

[stuartcr]

I doubt we could ever find out the truth in this.

[jws3sticks]

Tell me it ain't so!!!

[Fresh Wind]

Now I don’t know but I been told
It’s hard to run with the weight of gold
Other hand I’ve heard it said
Its just as hard with the weight of lead

[Brilliant]

How would a watchdog group know this?

[Oberon]

"With the demand for gold so strong worldwide, it has become impossible to return much of the leased gold without driving the price to the moon," said GATA's chairman, William J. Murphy III.

And that won't be because the gold will be more valuable... it'll be because your dollars are getting smaller.

[RoadTest]

#3 - Congress, which sold to banks the right to create and control all American money, back in 1913. They called those private banks “The Federal Reserve System”.

Lincoln and Kennedy tried to reverse that - put the coining of money back in the hands of the American people, or, at least, their government. You know what happened to them.

[RSmithOpt]

I know what happened to all the gold, really, I do.

[Travis McGee]

When was the last verified audit of the physical gold in Fort Knox?

I wonder if there is a pile of paper IOUs there instead of gold.

Or bogus gold “lease agreements” for physical gold that is long gone, melted down to rings and never to return.

[Travis McGee]

The Gold-Dow ratio is now 16 and sinking.

[decimon]

Now I don’t know but I been told

It’s hard to run with the weight of gold

I've handled gold and can tell you you ain't runnin' nowhere with it.

[Travis McGee]

When was the last verified independent audit of the physical gold held in Fort Knox?

Why so long ago?

[ovrtaxt]

http://www.geocities.com/dumbsounds/dumb43.wav

[Brilliant]

I saw a TV show about an audit they did at Fort Knox. Don’t remember when it was, but I’m sure it wasn’t all that recent. Probably the 70’s. I would imagine that they don’t feel they need to audit it that often when nothing is going in or out. Audits themselves probably present some risk of loss. The security they had for this audit was pretty extreme.

The gold at Fort Knox is worth about $200 billion, so it’s not chickenfeed, but on the other hand, the size of our economy pretty much dwarfs it.

[Sender]

I have a stupid question. Why would anyone lease gold bullion to someone else? Is that like a loan, so that the other person can claim to own so much gold and thereby trade and profit from it? And if we did lease someone gold, wouldn’t we ensure appropriate muscle to get it back?

[Red Badger]

Well, your half right........

[mad_as_he$$]

You may well be right. The vaults have not been opened for inspection since the early 70’s. It was only a brief examination of one small vault at Fort Knox. 2,500 tons per year are produced and the would easily fill Fort Knox to the brim in a very short time. It is really not that big of a place.

[Red Badger]

Gold, who needs gold? I have mutual funds!

Gold, who needs gold? I have Social Security AND shares in CitiBank!....