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NYSE Runs Out of Gold Bars: What Happens Next? - David Guyatt - 31-03-2009 Peter Lemkin Wrote:David Guyatt Wrote:Peter Presland Wrote:Peter In the case of the Dirty Old Lady, the promise was to exchange for silver --- Sterling don't ya know. But that was a long time ago. NYSE Runs Out of Gold Bars: What Happens Next? - Peter Presland - 31-03-2009 Hi David Lots of good points as always - and serious food for thought too. Thanks. What I am really saying is that, to the extent that the authorities want to keep tabs on hard currency being exchanged for physical gold, they will prefer that such transactions be 'officially' logged and reported. I don't know the precise details operating in the UK right now, but when I acquired some Krugerrands 5-10 years ago, there was a legal requirement that purchases over a certain sterling value be reported by the dealer - I think it was around £7K at the time. I therefore staggered my purchases. Also I did not trade the paper stuff in those days and admit to being somewhat naive about officialdom as well. It is probably also naive to assume that Krugerrands and a host of other newly minted coins are necessarily fabricated from LGD (or their certified-by-some-credible-authority equivalent) bars too. Maybe it is also naive to assume that a 1 oz Krugerrand that does indeed weigh in at exactly 1 oz is necessarilly 99% fine gold. Which makes any audit processes to assure said fineness a suitable subject for scrutiny to. All your other points notwithstanding though, I still think it would be relatively straightforward for the Banksters and their henchmen to explain vast upward revisions to the claimed 'above ground inventory' - a bit of controversy about the exact amount and how upward revisions came about etc etc would all be grist to the mill. In present circumstances, the obvious benefit of moving Black to white in quantity and having to make such revisions (eventually) is the tight control of the innocent bullion investor that it affords - confiscation, per Roosevelt's 1933 US order, becomes that much easier. It also assures continuing tight control over paper prices. NYSE Runs Out of Gold Bars: What Happens Next? - David Guyatt - 31-03-2009 Peter Presland Wrote:Hi David Peter, the current requirement is a ceiling of £5k for coins above which it must be reported. What's to stop wealthy people purchasing their coins/bullion from overseas suppliers, say in Switzerland or Vienna, Luxembourg, Moscow etc., and paying for the metal with offshore funds? After all the UK authorities only really care that earnings are declared for tax collection purposes, and supposing tax is paid, there is nothing to stop anyone legally exporting a big chunk of their money to wherever they like. Supposing tax is paid, that is. Jacking up the stats for above grounds stocks would probably cause a drop in the price, I think. And the PM London price fix is the standard price used - less a mutually agreeable negotiated percentage for size and difficulty - that has been at the core of every black bullion purchase documentation I have ever seen. Things may have changed of course. But why change something if it ain't broken. Supposing it ain't broken, that is. In significant purchases of bullion it is not that unusual for the bullion to be tested by the buyers representative to ensure it meets the "four nines" purity. Small buyers however, are left to either trust the metal meets those standards or pay for someone to take a small sample and test it themselves. NYSE Runs Out of Gold Bars: What Happens Next? - Peter Presland - 31-03-2009 David Guyatt Wrote:Jacking up the stats for above grounds stocks would probably cause a drop in the price, I think. Not necessarily. And in any case, there has clearly been a major price suppression operation under way for a decade or more now. It seems to me that credible revisions to above ground stocks have potential to assist in that endeavour - arguably less problematically too. All other points conceded - and thanks again. NYSE Runs Out of Gold Bars: What Happens Next? - David Guyatt - 31-03-2009 Peter Presland Wrote:David Guyatt Wrote:Jacking up the stats for above grounds stocks would probably cause a drop in the price, I think. Well then let's agree that if official stocks do leap I buy you a pint and if they don't, you buy me one, okay? :beer: NYSE Runs Out of Gold Bars: What Happens Next? - Jan Klimkowski - 31-03-2009 Fascinating thread - thanks to all. Of course, They have a track record of changing the rules and playing a Joker - with immediate effect. You think you own that gold? Nah - you're Trading with the Enemy, sucker.... Quote:Executive Order 6102 is an Executive Order signed on April 5, 1933 by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates." NYSE Runs Out of Gold Bars: What Happens Next? - Peter Presland - 31-03-2009 David Guyatt Wrote:Well then let's agree that if official stocks do leap I buy you a pint and if they don't, you buy me one, okay? :beer: Sounds okay to me NYSE Runs Out of Gold Bars: What Happens Next? - Peter Lemkin - 31-03-2009 By Chris Ayres | Times Online | Mar. 28, 2009 It is said to be the most impregnable vault on Earth: built out of granite, sealed behind a 22-tonne door, located on a US military base and watched over day and night by army units with tanks, heavy artillery and Apache helicopter gunships at their disposal. Since its construction in 1937 the treasures locked inside Fort Knox have included the US Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, three volumes of the Gutenberg Bible and Magna Carta. For several prominent investors and at least one senior US congressman it is not the security of the facility in Kentucky that is a cause of concern: it is the matter of how much gold remains stored there - and who owns it. They are worried that no independent auditors appear to have had access to the reported $137 billion (£96 billion) stockpile of brick-shaped gold bars in Fort Knox since the era of President Eisenhower. After the risky trading activities at supposedly safe institutions such as AIG they want to be reassured that the gold reserves are still the exclusive property of the US and have not been used to fund risky transactions. In other words, they want to be certain that the bullion has not been rendered as valueless as if a real-life Goldfinger had stolen it. “It has been several decades since the gold in Fort Knox was independently audited or properly accounted for,” said Ron Paul, the Texas Congressman and former Republican presidential candidate, in an e-mail interview with The Times. “The American people deserve to know the truth.” Mr Paul has so far attracted 21 co-sponsors for a Bill to conduct an independent audit of the Federal Reserve System - including its claims to Fort Knox gold - but an organisation named the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) is taking a different approach. It has hired the Virginia law firm William J.Olson, PC, to test President Obama's promise to bring “an unprecedented level of openness” to the Government and next month it will file several Freedom of Information requests for a full disclosure of US gold ownership and trading activities. “We're taking the President at his word,” said Chris Powell, of GATA. “If you go online you can find out how to build a nuclear weapon but you won't find any detailed records on central gold reserves.” A month after President Nixon resigned over the Watergate affair Congress demanded to inspect the contents of Fort Knox but the trip to Kentucky was dismissed by critics as a photo opportunity. Three years earlier Mr Nixon brought an end to the gold standard when France and Switzerland demanded to redeem their dollar holdings for gold amid the soaring cost of the Vietnam War. Many gold investors suspect that the US has periodically attempted to flood the market with Fort Knox gold to keep prices low and the dollar high - perhaps through international swap agreements with other central banks - but facts remain scarce and the US Treasury denies that any such meddling has gone on for at least the past decade. Pressure for more openness is mounting after the collapse of the global banking system and renewed interest in a return to the simpler era of the gold standard - a subject that is likely to be raised at the G20 summit next week. China and Russia are calling for the creation of a new world reserve currency amid fears that the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing policy - essentially printing money - might cause hyperinflation, then collapse. A spokesman for the US Treasury told The Times that US gold holdings are audited every year by the Department of Treasury's Office of Inspector General. He confirmed that although independent auditors oversee the process they are not given access to the Fort Knox vault. The website of the US Mint says that the 147.3 million troy ounces of gold in Fort Knox “is held as an asset of the US”. It does not elaborate. NYSE Runs Out of Gold Bars: What Happens Next? - Peter Lemkin - 31-03-2009 "Where's the Gold in Ft. Knox?" Posted January 29th, 2008 by The_Producer http://www.gata.org/ taken from: http://www.nowpublic.com/... The Wall Street Journal has agreed to publish a full-page ad in which the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee charges the U.S. government surreptitiously utilizes gold reserves to engage in international swaps and other market manipulations. "Anybody Seen Our Gold?" is the title of the ad, which alleges U.S. gold reserves held at depositories such as Fort Knox and West Point may have been seriously depleted. GATA asserts U.S. gold reserves are being shipped overseas to settle complex transactions utilized by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury to suppress the price of the precious metal. "The objective of this manipulation is to conceal the mismanagement of the U.S. dollar so that it might retain its function as the world's reserve currency," the ad copy reads in a pre-publication version GATA provided. The U.S. Treasury denies the claim, insisting the stock is accounted for regularly. GATA's chairman, William J. Murphy III, said his group was willing to pay the Wall Street Journal's cost of $264,000 to run the ad "to get the message out that the U.S. enters world markets without public disclosure to prop up the dollar and depress the price of gold." GATA cites as evidence the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee reports dating back to Jan. 31, 1995, showing the U.S. Treasury Department's Exchange Stabilization Fund had undertaken gold swaps. GATA, a non-profit 501 headquartered in Manchester, Conn., further asserts the federal government strategy to manipulate the price of gold has begun to fail. "Gold's recent rise toward $900 per ounce shows that the price suppression scheme is faltering," the GATA ad reads. "When it is widely understood how central banks have been suppressing gold, its price may rise to $3,000 or $5,000 an ounce or more." "The gold reserves of the United States have not been independently audited for half a century," the ad charges. The U.S. Treasury disagrees. "While the entire gold stock is not physically re-counted in any one year, over a period of years, by our continuous sampling process, the entire stock has been counted, and is effectively re-inventoried," Rich Delmar, counsel to Treasury's inspector general said. Delmar explained that the annual Office of Inspector General audits of mint facilities involves a physical inspection of certain vaults, which are subject to a 100-percent bar count and assaying. At the end of the inspection, each vault is sealed. "During each visit, all previously sealed vaults are checked to ensure that the seals have not been compromised or tampered with," he wrote. "This process is the basis for the conclusion that there has been a complete physical inventory." Delmar said the OIG's work consists of more than reviewing documents. "Our auditors physically observe the inventory work done at the mint facilities, and we are responsible for the assay sampling process," he said. The Treasury was asked if there is a comprehensive listing and accounting of any encumbrances or other restrictions on the gold in the U.S. Mint that may affect ownership. "This is not within OIG's purview," Delmar responded. "You may want to ask the mint directly." 'Dodging the question' Murphy called the response "ridiculous." "The mint does not make complex gold transactions with other countries," he said. "That is the role for the U.S. Treasury. The mint just houses the gold. The Treasury is dodging the question." GATA has filed a Freedom of Information Request asking the Fed and Treasury to disclose information on encumbrances and swapping or leasing of U.S. gold. "The Fed and Treasury have not even acknowledged receiving our FOIA request," Murphy said. "It's idiotic to tell you that the mint would have that knowledge." Murphy asked, "Is the gold in the mint truly U.S. gold reserves or is it just 'custodial gold' held for some other country? That's why we need to know what encumbrances there are on the gold as well as whether any U.S. gold has been shipped overseas to fulfill swap obligations." The 2006 annual report published on the website of the U.S. Mint lists KPMG as outside auditor. The KPMG signed audit report in the 2006 Annual Report of the U.S. Mint takes full responsibility for auditing the balance sheets and includes a statement of the custodial activity of U.S. gold reserves. According to the balance sheets, custodial gold and silver reserves make up 90 percent of the U.S. Mint's total assets. Still, there is no specific statement in the U.S. Mint's annual report or the KPMG audit report describing any KPMG involvement in a physical inspection of the gold reserves. KPMG's role as independent auditor for the U.S. Mint is also confirmed in the 2006 audit report prepared by the Office of Inspector General of the Treasury. Dan Ginsburg, a KPMG spokesman, declined to provide any detail concerning his company's audit procedures for the U.S. Mint, citing client confidentiality. Greater force Craig R. Smith, founder of Swiss America Trading Corp., said he accepts the GATA arguments because "there has to be a force greater than normal market conditions that has repressed the price of gold." Smith noted any number of financial crises since the late 1980s that "should have propelled gold way beyond the 1980 high of $850," including the savings and loan debacle and the birth of the Resolution Trust Corporation, as well as the on-going devaluation of the U.S. dollar against virtually all major foreign currencies. "Gold has been playing catch-up with current world economic conditions, and future movements should easily prove gold to be a great value at $900 an ounce. That price will look cheap going forward as the world starts to turn its back on debt-laden currencies and returns to money with a real value." But the U.S. Treasury, in a statement on its website, denies the Exchange Stabilization Fund has been used to manipulate gold prices. "The ESF does not engage in any transactions in the market for any metal such as gold, either in spot markets or in any of its derivative forms," the Treasury statement declares. "We would like to emphasize that the Treasury Department does not seek to manipulate the price of gold or any other metal by intervening in or otherwise interfering with the market." Yvanka Wallner, advertising sales representative for the Wall Street Journal in New York City, said the GATA ad has been approved by the Journal's lawyers and is being prepared to be run next week. Gold yesterday closed at an all-time high of $911 an ounce, up $28, on a weaker dollar and higher oil prices. NYSE Runs Out of Gold Bars: What Happens Next? - Peter Presland - 02-04-2009 Further to the opening post on this thread [URL="http://news.silverseek.com/TedButler/1238609316.php"]here is Ted Butler's take on things. [/URL] Butler is a 'Silver Bug' - his stuff can sometimes get tedious but he has the merit of having been at it a long time and single-handedly has forced another CFTC inquiry into allegations of Silver market manipulation - for all the good that is likely to do. He has a touching faith in the eventual triumph of the 'good-guys' you see. His work on the Weekly Open-Interest reports and the Monthly Bank Participation reports are a must-read for anyone with an interest in silver. They demonstrate quite unambiguously, that just one or two banks (That's Banks NOT miners or dealers who NEED to sell the stuff) hold a bigger open interest short position than the rest of the commercial category combined and that one is JP Morgan which is quite probably the only one. Collusion with the authorities to take over (and thus hide) the position during the Bear Stearns debacle is at the root of it. TPTB clearly find him an embarrassment. This link outlines A CFTC board member's interim comments on the inquiry and Butler's demolition of them. As with gold, I am personally no 'silver bug', if only because I am cognisant of official determination and proven ability through the most extreme circumstance to stay in control of prices as it were. However, the fundamentals of silver do make it appear a better long-term bet than gold right now with the Gold/Silver ratio sitting at just over 70 against a long term average of around 50. It took a leap upwards through Autumn last year (part of the same Bear Stearns shenanigans) and has been on a slow decline ever since. |