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.