CPM Group’s Jeffrey Christian did a Youtube podcast in which he mocked the view that most if not all of the gold in “Ft Knox” has been used by the Fed and the U.S. Treasury to help control the price of gold since the late 1960’s (London Gold Pool). The best proof those of us who are convinced that the Treasury’s gold plus an unknown quantity of gold held of behalf of foreign Central Banks has been hypothecated in the Fed’s effort to suppress the gold
price is two-fold: 1) Contrary to Christian’s claim, there has not been a bona fide, independent audit of the Fed’s gold holdings since Eisenhower was the President: 2) the U.S. flinched, embarrassingly, when Germany requested the repatriation of half of the gold the Fed has “safekept” for Germany since the end of WW2; the U.S. balked then eventually agree to return 300 tonnes of the custodied gold, or 20% over seven years. Why not in just a couple of months similar to Venezuela’s repatriation of 200 tonnes of gold the prior year?
With the sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S., along with the U.S.’ confiscation of Russia’s assets held at western Central Banks, eastern hemisphere Central Banks have been repatriating gold held in London vaults as well as adding to their existing gold stock.
As a third, and even more damning piece of evidence in support of the view that the Fed’s gold vaults are largely empty (except for the dust that has accumulated on the empty pallets on which gold bars were previously stacked), the Fed has refused to answer official inquiries about both the gold repatriation activity by foreign Central Banks and the questions about its gold market activities. It has even denied FOIA requests for this information. Why the secrecy? The Fed used to report this information. What changed?
GATA’s Chris Powell takes Jeffrey Christian to task over his glib dismissal of those who question whether the Fed has emptied its custodial vaults in its effort to suppress the gold price (Christian actually referred to the truthseekers as “scum”):
But contrary to Christian’s suggestion, the big question about U.S. gold reserve is not the narrow one of whether there’s still metal at Fort Knox but whether the U.S. government has foreign gold obligations and whether these obligations are so large that U.S. gold reserves at Fort Knox and elsewhere are potentially impaired by multiple claims of ownership.
In this respect the curiosity of a more candid and honest analyst might be piqued by the recent refusal of the Federal Reserve to answer even for a member of Congress whether foreign nations have been repatriating their gold that nominally has been vaulted at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The amount of foreign gold vaulted at the New York Fed used to be reported publicly by the Fed at various intervals. Why is it apparently a top secret matter now? Christian doesn’t seem to mind.
Chris’ entire commentary can be founder here: CPM Group’s Jeff Christian battles straw men to distract from the big issues of gold
Possession is 100% of the law with physical gold and silver – if you don’t hold it yourself, you don’t own it