NYSE Runs Out of Gold Bars: What Happens Next?

[David Guyatt]

Peter

....those with paper gold will have only paper

You are quite right about paper; And it applies to paper anything really - including (even especially) bank notes. They are promises pure and simple and have the same credibility and prospects of being honoured as whoever is making the promise. That in fact is the nub of the matter.

Any English banknote bears the following words, written top and centre of the note:

Bank of England
I promise to pay the bearer the sum of...

Anyone holding a £20 note can, by appointment, visit the head office of the Bank of England and exchange that £20 note for smaller notes - say 2 x £10 or coins or a mixture of both. The same applies to all other issued notes.

That is the sum value of that meaningless promise.

Wasn't it in most countries originally a promise to pay in gold? It was in the US until not that long ago. Whoever was behind that change really knew what they were doing and that the rest of us wouldn't catch on. One could, even with the old promise of gold' doubt if you'd get your gold, but at least it was a promise of something of some intrinsic worth. Now it is monopoly money and even as such, loosing value from nothing to less than nothing, IMO. Ameran currency is backed by the 'full faith and credit' of the Government - which is why I say going from worthless to less than....

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.

[Peter Presland]

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.

[David Guyatt]

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.

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.

[Peter Presland]

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.

[David Guyatt]

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.

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:

[Jan Klimkowski]

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....

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."
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Effect of the Order
* 2 Invalidation and reissue
* 3 Abrogation and subsequent events
* 4 False Rumors of Safety Deposit Seizure
* 5 References
* 6 External links

[edit] Effect of the Order

The Order required most people to deliver on or before May 1, 1933 all but a small amount gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, as amended on March 9, 1933, violation of Executive Order 6102 was punishable by fine up to $10,000 ($166,640 if adjusted for inflation as of 2008) or up to ten years in prison, or both. Because of this forced immediate sale of gold to the Federal Reserve at the government set price of $20.67 per troy ounce, this Executive Order is often referred to as the Gold Confiscation of 1933. Shortly after this forced sale, the price of gold from the treasury for international transactions was raised to $35 an ounce; the U.S. government thereby devalued the U.S. dollar by 41%.

Order 6102 specifically exempted "customary use in industry, profession or art"--a provision that covered artists, jewelers, dentists, and sign makers among others. The order further permitted any person to own up to $100 in gold coins ($1,664 if adjusted for inflation as of 2008; a face value equivalent to five troy ounces of Gold).

[edit] Invalidation and reissue

Despite the dire threat of ten years in prison there was only one prosecution under the order, and in that case the order was ruled invalid by federal judge John M. Woolsey, on the technical grounds that the order was signed by the President, not the Secretary of the Treasury as required.[1]

The circumstances of the case were that a New York attorney, Frederick Barber Campbell had on deposit at Chase National over 5,000 ounces of gold. When Campbell attempted to withdraw the gold Chase refused and Campbell sued Chase. A federal prosecutor then indicted Campbell on the following day (September 27, 1933) for failing to register his gold.[2] Ultimately the prosecution of Campbell failed but the authority of federal government to seize gold was upheld.

The case forced the Roosevelt administration to issue a new order under the signature of the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, which was in force for a few months until the passage of Gold Reserve Act on January 30, 1934.

[edit] Abrogation and subsequent events

The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 abrogated the gold clause in government and private contracts and changed the value of the dollar in gold from $20.67 to $35 per ounce. This price remained until August 15, 1971 when President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, thus abandoning the gold standard for foreign exchange (see Nixon Shock).

The limitation on gold ownership in the U.S. was repealed after President Gerald Ford signed a bill legalizing private ownership of gold coins, bars and certificates by an act of Congress codified in Pub.L. 93-373 [2] [3] which went into effect December 31, 1974. P.L. 93-373 does not repeal the Gold Clause Resolution of 1933, which makes unlawful any contracts which specify payment in a fixed amount of money or a fixed amount of gold. That is, contracts are unenforceable if they use gold monetarily rather than as a commodity of trade. However, Act of Oct. 28, 1977, Pub. L. No. 95-147, § 4©, 91 Stat. 1227, 1229 (originally codified at 31 U.S.C. § 463 note, recodified as amended at 31 U.S.C. § 5118(d)(2)) amended the 1933 Joint Resolution and made it clear that parties could again include so-called gold clauses in contracts formed after 1977 [3].

[edit] False Rumors of Safety Deposit Seizure
This article contains weasel words, vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed. (March 2009)

Circulating on internet are rumors that Executive Order 6102 led to the seizure or freezing of safe deposit boxes in 1933. There are also falsified versions of the text of the order which imply that "Internal Revenue Service agents" managed this supposed freezing of safe deposit boxes. The actual text of the order which can be viewed in the PDF file below has no reference to IRS agents or safe deposit boxes.

In actuality, despite the threat of criminal prosecution, no safe deposit boxes were forcibly searched under the order and the few prosecutions that occurred in the 1930s for gold hoarding were executed under different statutes. One of the few such cases occurred over two years later in 1936 when the safe deposit box of Zelik Josefowitz, who was not a U.S. citizen, containing over 10,000 ounces of gold was seized with a search warrant as part of a tax evasion prosecution.[4] In 1933 approximately 500 tonnes of gold were turned in to the Treasury "voluntarily" at the exchange rate of $20.67 per troy ounce.[5]

Although the U.S. Treasury did not seize safe deposit box contents it nevertheless came into possession of a large number of them due to bank failures. During the 1930s over 3,000 banks failed and the contents of their safe deposit boxes were remanded to the custody of the Treasury. If no one claimed the box it remained in the possession of the Treasury. As of October, 1981, there were 1605 cardboard cartons in the basement of the Treasury each containing the contents of an unclaimed safe deposit box.[6]

[edit] References

1. ^ Time Magazine, Monday, Nov. 27, 1933
2. ^ Time Magazine, Monday, Oct. 09, 1933
3. ^ [1]
4. ^ "Josefowitz Gold", Time Magazine, April, 1936.
5. ^ Time Magazine, Monday, Nov. 27, 1933.
6. ^ Wall Street Journal, October 15, 1981.

[Peter Presland]

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

[Peter Lemkin]

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.

[Peter Lemkin]

"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.

[Peter Presland]

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.