A concocted public relations scheme – an event which resembled the annual Punxsutawney ground-hog viewing tradition – in which the Treasury Secretary emerges from Ft Knox and proclaims, “the gold is safe” does not provide any evidence whatsoever.
On cue, Jim Rickards followed up with a half-baked apology for the unwillingness of the U.S. Government to force a bona fide audit of the public’s gold being “safekept” in the Fed’s custody.
Bill “Midas” Murphy asked my opinion on Rickard’s white washing of the topic:
This is why I don’t read Rickards. I don’t know what his deal is anymore. He was a front for the Pentagon’s goal to circulate the idea of the SDR replacing the dollar as the reserve currency. This is because they know the dollar is toast but the dollar is still the largest percentage share of the SDR so the U.S. would remain in control over the world’s reserve currency if it were to be the SDR.
Now Rickards has pimped himself out to Agora, which really devalued Agora in my opinion. And he’s ripping off the public with his gold letter subscription. Total scam. I’ve had subscribers to my Mining Stock Journal tell me his subscription service is a farce.
He really butchered the truth there with that article. While it’s true that a gold leasing transaction does not have to entail the actual transfer of physical gold from the lessor to the lessee, often it does. Goldman recently did a lease-style transaction with Venezuela that transferred possession of VZ’s gold to Goldman.
The U.S. would have to audit to the gold if the public forced the issue. Ron Paul tried several times to force the issue on behalf of the public and the Fed spent millions in lobbying money to get Barney Frank to quash Paul’s efforts. The Fed hired Linda Robertson, formerly a lobbyist for Enron, to assist with the effort to snuff out any attempt to legislate an audit. That’s why the Government has never ordered an audit of the PUBLIC’s gold. You don’t spend millions to derail legislation just because you’re worried it will elevate the importance of gold to the public. That’s complete foolish babble but coming from Rickards makes it sound legitimate.
That’s Rickards’ modus operandi. Offer up some half-baked justification to support his argument because he knows a majority of his audience will nod their head robotically in agreement rather than question the assertion. Does he ever offer proof? Who are his military contacts? Why are we supposed to accept the legitimacy of his assertions with blind faith, especially considering that the “tracks in the snow” suggesting the contrary have been visible for many years. Certainly well before Rickards’ handlers thrust him under the spotlight of the gold investing, truth-seeking community.
As for the actual physical transfer of gold, if gold under the Fed’s control has not been used to satisfy eastern hemisphere delivery demands for several years, how come it took so long for Germany to get its gold bars back, allegedly? Especially given that it took Hugo Chavez just 4 months to repatriate 160 tonnes of gold that was held at several Central Bank vaults around western Europe? From all accounts, the gold bars Germany originally sent to the U.S. for “safekeeping” after WWII are not the same bars that were returned, assuming they were actually returned. Again, why does anyone accept with blind faith anything coming from any Government, especially the U.S. Government?
A small portion of the public, led by a high-ranking, long-time Congressman have demanded several times in the last decade to see bona fide evidence that the gold owned by the Treasury, which means the citizens of the U.S., is physically sitting in the various Fed vaults and is unencumbered by any form of counter-party claim. The fact that the Government refuses to do this can only lead to one conclusion – and it’s not Rickard’s half-baked apology.
This is a topic that was put to rest in my mind more than a decade ago. Some of the gold may be physically sitting in the various Fed vaults “safeguarded” by the military, but most of it is now sitting in the form of refined kilo bars in Chinese vaults or as highly-prized gold jewelry draped around Indian wives.
To counter Rickards’ “military sources” reference, I received this email last night from a reader:
Back in February 2011, I ran into a Kentucky good ole boy who worked at Fort Knox in rural Kentucky. Fort Knox was also an Army Military depot as well as gold storage which it is/was famous for.
Several months before February 2011, the Army made a decision to transfer the Army Military Depot at Fort Knox to other military depots and my Ky guy no longer had a job and had to transfer and relocate to keep a Federal Gov’t job. So that’s what he did, he relocated and how I ran into him.
So I asked him…”Does Ft Knox have any gold there because I have heard there may no longer be any gold there.”
His response: “That’s been the rumor on the Base for some time…but the only people that would know for sure are the people who have clearance to get into the vault.” He didn’t have anything else to add or say because he worked on the military depot part of the base. But this is 6 plus years ago and I believe him because it just came spontaneously out of his mouth. It sent shivers down my spine when he told me this.
This is how I feel about what he said: People can’t keep a secret…just human nature….a worker can tell his spouse, a spouse can talk to a friend…and before you know it, it’s all around the base. Spreads like a wild fire. This is in rural KY so rumors and news like this will never get any national publicity legs so it just stays local.
Who needs gold when you can buy bitcoin? Hedge funds and other so called institutional investors are piling into bitcoin. It is about time for the Federal reserve to print dollars out of thin air and immediately convert them into wealth multiplying bitcoins.
An audit of the Federal Reserve (feral reserve) would by a joke. Ron Paul, although a most excellent statesman, is naive concerning an audit of the feral reserve. Does anyone really think they would be “honest and forthcoming”. Let’s face it, how many criminals would own up to their criminal activities? They (the feral reserve) would just furnish a “second set of books” that would appear totally legitimate. They are a criminal organization that should be “tried” with the RICO Act. Of course, that won’t happen. The rule of law does NOT exist in this country and tyranny is how they operate.
As for the gold the U.S. allegedly holds and reports…does anyone actually believe what they report? It, again, would be incredibly naive to believe anything they spew forth.
Agree 100% with you about Rickards. I only read him to find out about the “elite” planning/thinking so I can see and be prepared for any foolish/criminal government schemes.
I put Richards in the same category as Bix Weir; both have made unsubstantiated claims that there will be a rescue of the system by internal agents in some way or another, and have purposely downplayed the importance of tangible money as a representative of economic systems. More egregious is the fact that they both have wrongly claimed that metals are at a disadvantage to digital currencies because it’s slower to clear a transaction (transportation of metals, confirming delivery, etc).
Well…gee…I may not be an Econ major, but last time I checked….interest rates balance out the problems with slower payments, now don’t they. Worldwide industry itself deals with delays of payment all the time for actual goods and services, yet it overcomes this with agreements that incorporate the price of present goods relative to the future. And since eventually…you must deliver actual goods for actual goods…you have to ask how (if at all) interest rates are being inputted within these imaginary metrics? The answer is that it’s based on confidence alone…and these two clowns know it.
Talking about Bix Weir, he has always maintained that the U.S. has thousands of tonnes of gold, but it’s still in the ground in places like under the Grand Canyon or chocolate mountain.
According to him they build military bases on these sites so no one can get near them. His theory is they found so much gold under the Grand Canyon in the early part of the 20th century. (he even has a front page headline from a newspaper of the time) This, according to Weir was why they set up the Federal Reserve because there would have been so much gold it would have destabilised the international financial system. (Don’t laugh too loudly)
As for Crypto currencies he is convinced the U.S. govt is behind them. And that they invented the block chain. (Which I would then guess means they have a back door into them.) Apparently Alan Greenspan was a big goldbug in the 1960s, and a computer programmer who according to Weir was behind a lot of the software that trades financial markets.
It all sounds too good to be true, but he is convinced there is some great plan that the good guys (whoever they are?) are progressing to a conclusion. Watch this space!!
I don’t remember that from Bix…but that definitely takes the cake. Even if we were to assume he’s telling the truth…it still doesn’t mean the PTB are acting in good faith by keeping a natural resource from the public. When gold’s supply rises due to mining…it makes it that much cheaper for it to be used in industry, thereby reducing its supply for use in commerce and increasing the availability of consumer goods that use gold as part of their makeup (such as jewelry). Thus, there’s a natural pull between its monetary and non-monetary demands that serves to preserve, and even appreciate, its purchasing power.
Besides, even if gold is as plentiful as the ocean…then the market would just use a different commodity as money anyway (such as silver), so it just goes to show how economically illiterate (or purposely deceptive) Weir really is.
Unfortunately, we get a lot more of this insanity in the crypto-community because the fanatics outright abhor non-monetary uses! Remember this promise of Bitcoin? A rising supply of cryptos up to a certain limit…but never a reduction of the supply (as if a reduction was a bad thing to begin with). And nobody questions the necessity mining…when every Bitcoin was already infinitely divisible! Really, why is mining even necessary when I can just sell 0.0000000000000001 of a “coin”? It’s not like it has any uses outside of my computer anyway. Why even pretend that we’re dealing with a scarce thing when, in the end, it’s just fractions?! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!!!
Also this elite agent Rickards predicts an eventual “fair” Gold price of $10,000/oz (which you can take it is a “high enough” price from the idiot elite perspective). They probably imagine a “managed” rise to that price level, like from $200 to $2000. What this tells me is that the price may even take out 10 times that (or more, and in today’s dollars) when the system finally fails spectacularly in an extremely unmanaged fashion.
The timing of Munchdicks visit and the upcoming US Debt ceiling are of no coincidence.
Stellar work, Mr. Kransler. Rickards is a tool of the Deep State…
The gold is “deep storage”, meaning there ain’t nothing in Fort Knox and if the people want to see their gold, they’ll just have to be patient until the government digs it up from out of the ground somewhere, if ever they do.
The fox has been in charge of the hen house, with no oversight, for decades.
Who is so naive as to think all hens and eggs are safe and accounted for?
It seems logical that the Fort Knox gold is gone, but why should we assume that the globalists [having orchestrated this theft] would allow the Chinese and Indians to benefit by accumulating gold as is the generally accepted narrative?
I have no reason to trust gold import/export data, or SGE data, that tells me to believe that the Chinese and Indians are absorbing more than the total annual gold production year after year, any more than we can trust Steve Mnuchin.
For illustration, gold eagle sales in the USA have never topped 50 tonne per annum. So how should impoverished Chinese and Indians manage to buy more than 3000 tonne year after year when wealthy Americans come nowhere close to this even on their biggest year?
If I were a globalist bent on creating a cashless planet I would sell the populace’s precious metals into hiding permanently, and drive the mining industry into oblivion, going for maximum short term extraction by crushing market price and forcing “high grading”, just as has occurred.
So I say try London or Switzerland for the whereabouts of our missing gold.
Gary, I think you’re assuming that Americans appreciate gold the same way Indians and Chinese do. Trust me, they don’t. Most westerners, let alone Americans, don’t ever discuss precious metals in monetary terms. At best, your average western consumer will seek them out for jewelry purposes (and lousy OVERPRICED jewelry at that, so they don’t even get much metal anyway).
I used to work in jewelry sales, so I know what I’m talking about. One of the biggest observations I made was how shrewd Chinese and Indian customers tended to be when it came to the purity of the metal they were dealing with. Almost all wanted 100% pure silver or gold; nothing in between. I even had an Indian lady (wearing a pure gold tiara, bangle and necklace) complain that our prices were ludicrous…and I later realized she was referring to the amount of gold in our merchandise. Even if you were to account for exchange rates, Americans will gladly over-pay for 10k-14k jewelry in this country than save lots by buying pure bullion and working with a professional jeweler. There are a few who do…but they are very few and far between. Contrast that with easterners, and the differences are like night and day.
( In all fairness though, there’s only been two times that western customer wanted pure gold. One was from a collector of bullion, and the other a U.S. soldier wanting a pure-gold ring in case he got stranded in the middle-east.)
Funny enough, when I checked back with my former boss recently, one of the biggest sales they’re making are for $50+ silver BEADS meant for a designer necklace (far less than an ounce each, I can tell you that, and no crystals in most). According to my former boss, a particular manufacturer of these beads owns 80% of the silver mines worldwide. If that’s true…they’re making bank, while American consumers continue to buy costume-wear and thinking they’re rich. Pathetic!
I’ve been ignoring Rickards for years.
He seems like a plant to me, installed to spread insider misinformation. Wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Everything he says is scripted to mislead down a certain path that TPTB want you to believe.
And sadly he’s taken over the Daily Reckoning too, which used to be a good website before he got there. I never read it anymore.
Rickards is a rat.
Regarding Germany gold ,
how can we know they got that gold from USA lately ?
It’s maybe only propaganda ?1??
The gold can only go up , they know it.
If I am correct the Chinese sent signal to USA: we got de facto 20,000 tons of gold so don’t start a trade war with us because we screw your dollar hegemony. The USA fired back
: We have our own gold so we are not afraid. May be I am missing something but I never heard from Rickard anything about the Chinese info, that is to big to miss it.
All I know is I’m getting older and older waiting for gold and silver to even go to their inflation adjusted highs.
If this keeps going the way it is, capitulation through exhaustion is the most likely scenario.
This shell game could go on 10 more years, and don’t believe the BS from the experts that tell you it can’t, they don’t know anymore than me or you.
I’m totally over it, gold and silver haven’t improved my existence at all.
I tend to side with Alisdair Macleod’s scenario that the SCO is edging towards eliminating the dollar for global settlement – at least in their sphere, which could account for 70% of trade. Gave mentioned this week that yuan is now redeemable on the Hong Kong exchange, which eliminates the need to recycle currency back to it’s origin (ie. petrodollar finance) and avoids country risk and sanctioning, currently practiced by the US against those they wish to destabilize.
So gold means no counterparty risk, most liquid asset in the world, and perfect trade collateral. As “full faith and credit” degrades to “full fraud and no credit”, those who say they have the gold will have to “show us da money” or “no tickey, no washey”!
I think mr. Rickards deal is that he is positioning himself to be(come) one of the main negotiators on behelst of the USA once the current Dollar system collapses and a new one that will replace it.
He has to be telling obbvious truths so he will be an acceptable to his global peers. So there he has to balance two things, the SDR and gold. The most likely options that will be chosen.
Ofcourse he has to tell half truths and all out lies so the average Joe (especially the richer ones) dont panic and start buying gold big time since the SDR cannot be bought by the average Joe. That is why, even though his writings clearly show that gold is superior to paper investments in times like the one we live in, only advocates 10% gold.
This is my take on him and that is why I read 2 of his books, it gives me a view on what is likely the position of the the USA once this house of cards collapses. Now that I know that I do not follow him closely anymore.
To be clear, I do think the American gold is still there. Even if it was swapped (without leaving the vault) the American government can always claim ”bad apples” in the privately owned FED and thus make the contacts invalid. This since the government (treasury) of the USA owns it and will force the FED to print the dollars to compensate the holders of the contracts that way. Or something along these lines.
Regards, Hugo
Good points. Riktards does indeed appear to be grooming himself for a seat at the table in the NWO, even though these efforts become less effective with the passing of time as he physically looks more and more like the 200-year old astronaut in the final scene of Kubrick’s film “2001”.
I started following R. in 2009 on King World News (to which he was later no longer invited) and gave up in disgust a couple of years ago after his derogatory comments on 9/11 truthers in “Death of Money”, a slew of failed forecasts like the supposed USD collapse in Sept 2016, and the hawking of ghost-written newsletters at Agora. For me the guy is a straight-up spook.
Since we’re on the subject of gold and cryptos, I figured I’d mention some unfortunate news. Andy Hoffman from Miles Franklin was just axed after he blew his lid during an argument with SGTReport (something to do with Lynette Zang’s reference to something called ACCHAIN.) Totally bizarre, and while I’m not a major fan of Andy’s work, I still enjoyed his take on market trends and sticking it to the CBs. That is, BEFORE he became a cheerleader for BitCoin.
This is not to say that supporting cryptos automatically inflates your ego or anything, of course. Suffice to say though, never your pride cloud your judgment.
We don’t even know if there was ever 4500 tons of gold in Ft. Knox. In 1968 the London gold pool collapsed. Then there was a run on U.S. Gold that forced Nixon to close the gold window in 1971. They probably used all the gold to keep those stupid price rigging scams going. I don’t even know why Mnuchin went to the vault, since the Dollar doesn’t have an official relationship with gold. I do suspect he was trying to convince simpleton observers that there is gold in Ft. Knox. I’m perplexed as to why Bring it up, and why now?