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Second Thoughts On US Official Gold Reserves Audits
Submitted by Koos Jansen via BullionStar blog,
This post is a sequel to “A First Glance At US Official Gold Reserves Audits”.
What is not often covered in the media or blogosphere are the audits of the US official gold reserves stored at the US Mint, which is the custodian for 95 % (7716 tonnes) of the stash – nowadays also referred to as custodial deep storage, and at the Federal Reserve Bank Of New York that safeguards the remaining 5 % (418 tonnes). The lawful owner of the US official gold reserves is the US Treasury. Part one covered the most recent records I could find published by the US government, in this post we’ll examine more historical records and approach this matter from a more critical angle. Because of the amount of information I found this post is split in multiple parts.
What Is A Gold Audit?
From Wikipedia:
Auditing is defined as a systematic and independent examination of data, statements, records, operations and performances (financial or otherwise) of an enterprise for a stated purpose. In any auditing the auditor perceives and recognizes the propositions before him for examination, collects evidence, evaluates the same and on this basis formulates his judgment, which is communicated through his audit report.
Due to constraints, an audit seeks to provide only reasonable assurance that the statements are free from material error. Hence, statistical sampling is often adopted in audits.
To be sure, I’ve asked several bullion dealers about how their audits are being conducted. They all agreed an audit involves three parties: the owner of the gold, the custodian and an external (independent) auditor. The external auditor examines the gold, compares its findings with the statements of the custodian and then reports on the accuracy of the statements of the custodian to the owner of the gold. An example of an audit report by such an external auditor can be found here.
The fact that the auditor is an external party is essential; if the custodian itself would perform the audit it could easily falsify the reports and lend gold that isn’t often transferred in and out of the vaults.
What Is A Gold Assay?
Assaying gold is done to test the purity of the metal; to make sure a bar contains at least the amount of fine gold disclosed on its inscription. For assay tests often samples are taken from random bars (not from all bars of a specific inventory). From Wikipedia:
A metallurgical assay is a compositional analysis of an ore, metal, or alloy. Raw precious metals (bullion) are assayed by an assay office. Silver is assayed by titration, gold by cupellation and platinum by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry.
Ron Paul
Allegedly the deep storage gold at the US Mint is currently stored in 42 vault compartments at three different locations in the US. 4,583 tonnes is stored at Fort Knox, Kentucky, 1,364 tonnes in Denver, Colorado, and 1,682 tonnes at West Point, New York.
The last time the US official gold reserve audits were publicly discussed was in 2011 when Ron Paul, who was a well informed member of the US House of Representatives, proposed new legislation at the time to have a full audit of the US holdings: The Gold Reserve Transparency Act (H.R. 1495, not enacted). Strangely Dr Paul wasn’t up to date of the audit and assay procedures performed since 1974, while he was in politics because of gold since 1971. From Wikipedia:
When President Richard Nixon “closed the gold window” … on August 15, 1971, Paul decided to enter politics and became a Republican candidate for the United States Congress.
Only during the preparation of the congressional hearing Dr Paul became aware of the audit and assay procedures. From Paul’s opening statement at the hearing June 23, 2011:
For far too long, the United States Government has been less than transparent in releasing information relating to its gold holdings. Not surprisingly, this secrecy has given rise to a number of theories about the gold at Fort Knox and other depositories.
Some people speculate that the gold has been involved in gold swaps with foreign governments or bullion banks. Others believe that the gold has been secretly shipped out of Fort Knox and sold. And, still others believe that the bars at Fort Knox are actually gold-plated tungsten. Historically, the Treasury and the Mint have dismissed these theories rather than addressing these concerns with substantive rebuttals.
The difference between custody and ownership, questions about the responsibility for U.S. gold held at the New York Fed, and that issue of which division at Treasury is ultimately responsible for the gold reserves are just some of the questions that have come up during the research for this hearing. In a way, it seems as though someone decided to lock up the gold, put the key in a desk somewhere, and walk off without telling anyone anything. Only during the preparation for this hearing was my office informed that the Mint has in fact conducted assays of statistically representative samples of gold bars, and we were provided with a sample assay report.
While the various agencies concerned have been very accommodating to my staff in attempting to shed some light on this issue, it should not require the introduction of legislation or a congressional hearing to gain access to this information.
Why did Paul not know about this? Why did it take a congressional hearing to get the details of the audit and assay tests? Why wasn’t this information easily accessible to him and the American people?
Gold Audits At Fort Knox
The construction of the notorious gold depository was finished in 1936 at the Fort Knox army base in Kentucky; large quantities of gold were first deposited in 1937. After President Roosevelt had ordered the people of the United States to sell all their gold coins and bullion for $20.67 per fine ounce to the Federal Reserve in 1933, through Executive Order 6102 (the great gold confiscation), a fortress was needed to store the bars that were coming out of the smelters of the seized gold. The bars that were melted from gold coins are approximately 90 % pure, the majority of the bars in Fort Knox are coin bars.
The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 required the Federal Reserve to transfer ownership of the official gold reserves to the Department of the Treasury, in return it received gold certificates (that are mere redeemable for dollars). The US Mint was assigned to safeguard the Treasury Department’s gold, silver and other assets at several depositories across the US, among others at Fort Knox and Denver.
1953
To research the integrity of the audits performed at Fort Knox (and the other depositories) in all of history, we’ll start from the beginning and work our way to the present. The first audit I could find dates from 1953, when total US reserves accounted for roughly 20,000 tonnes. Many researchers that have worked on this subject in the past refer to the first and last full audit of 1953. However, the audit in 1953 was anything but full.
During my research I came across many articles of researchers that have investigated Fort Knox audits – Ed Durell, James Turk and Tom Szabo, to name a few. Often these articles contained dead web links to documents on US government websites. Everything that was still accessible during my research I copied to my own servers to secure access to them at all times.
The next quotes are from the official report of the gold audit in 1953 (download here).
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1953
REPORT ON FISCAL OPERATIONS
VERIFICATION OF GOLD AND SILVER BULLION AND OTHER TREASURY ASSETS
…The audit was performed in accordance with procedures which were recommended by an advisory committee of consultants appointed jointly by the present Secretary and his predecessor in office. Members of the advisory committee were W. L. Hemingway, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Mercantile Trust Company, St. Louis, chairman; Wm. Fulton Kurtz, Chairman of the Board, The Pennsylvania Company, Philadelphia; Sidney B. Congdon, President, National City Bank of Cleveland, Cleveland; and James L. Robertson, Member, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, Washington. As had been suggested by the advisory committee, the audit was conducted under the general supervision of a continuing committee representing both incoming and outgoing Treasury officials. Representatives of the Comptroller General of the United States observed the audits at each of the various audit sites.
In accordance with a recommendation of the advisory committee the special settlement committee at the Fort Knox depositary opened three gold compartments, or 13.6 per cent of the total of twenty-two sealed compartments at that institution containing 356,669,010.306 fine ounces [11,094 metric tonnes] of gold valued at $12,483,415,360.28. All of the gold contained in the three sealed compartments opened, amounting to 34,399,629.685 fine ounces [1,070 tonnes] valued at $1,203,987,038.94 or approximately 88,000 bars, was counted by members of the settlement committee and found in exact agreement with the recorded contents of the compartments. Slightly in excess of 10 per cent of the total gold values so counted, or some 9,000 bars weighing approximately 130 tons, was further verified through weighing upon special balance scales indicating exact weights to the 1/100 part of a troy ounce. All gold weighed was found in exact agreement with the recorded weight thereof. Further, test assays were made of 26 gold bars selected at random from the total gold counted. The reported results of the test assays indicated, that all gold tested was found to be of a fineness equal to or in excess of that appearing in the mint records and stamped on the particular gold bars involved. Gold samples used for test assay purposes were obtained through drilling from both the top and bottom of each representative gold bar. In final confirmation of the verification of the gold bullion asset values held in the Fort Knox depositary the special settlement committee reported in part as follows:
“0n the basis of assays, your committee can positively report that the gold represented, according to assay, is at the depositary. We have no reason, whatsoever, to believe other than, should all melts be assayed, the results would be the same.”
“We, the undersigned, found the assets verified, to be in full agreement with the assets as indicated by the joint seals affixed to the respective compartments on January 26, 1953.”
“It is the opinion of this committee that the same agreement would be found should all of the compartments be verified.”
In short; an advisory committee of “consultants” assembled special settlement committees that, under the supervision of Treasury officials and Representatives of the Comptroller General, audited 3 of in total 22 compartments filled with gold (it’s likely Fort Knox has many more compartments in total). 13.6 % – 1,070 tonnes – of all the gold bars held at Fort Knox was counted, of which 9,000 bars were weighed upon special balance scales and 26 bars were assayed. The document notes procedures at other depositories closely paralleled those employed at Fort Knox, though no numbers are disclosed.
In 1953 the US Treasury held approximately 1,300,000 gold bars at multiple depositories of which 88,000 were counted, 9,000 were carefully weighed and 26 bars (0.00002 %) were assayed; no external auditing firm was present. This was not a full audit.
1974
The other full audit that keeps buzzin around in the media was the one in 1974, because the media was actually allowed to enter the fortress back then. On September 23, 1974, roughly 100 journalists were allowed entrance, accompanied by 9 members of Congress.
When the total US official gold reserves had declined by 11,500 tonnes from 1953 to 1974, many Americans began to doubt if the US actually had any gold left at all, especially after Nixon had temporarily suspended the convertibility of dollars for gold at the US Treasury in 1971. The amount of gold at Fort Knox had dropped from 11,094 tonnes (stored in 22 compartments) to 4,585 tonnes (stored in 13 compartments). In an attempt to reassure the American people not all gold was gone a new audit was scheduled.
From several sources we know for the visual inspection by the press and congressmen only one compartment was opened, in which 368.2 tonnes was stored. I edited a small video clip from a History Channel documentary for us to take a look inside Fort Knox.
Whether one or multiple compartments were opened is actually irrelevant, unqualified people looking at a wall of yellow bricks and weighing a few bars will not pass as an audit.
The director of the Mint in 1974, Mary Brooks, did a remarkable confession when the press asked if there is a tunnel to the vault. She showed a narrow tunnel, the size of a sewer pipe, which could only be opened from inside the vault in case someone was trapped – no pictures were allowed to be taken from the tunnel. The escape could only be made outside the vault, not the building itself, she said. There are thus three connections to the vault, the front door, the back door and the tunnel.
The real audit started the day after, on September 24, 1974. This audit was performed by “a committee including auditors from GAO and from Treasury’s Office of the Secretary, Bureau of Government Financial Operations (BGFO), U.S. Customs Service, and Bureau of the Mint. The committee also included Bureau of the Mint technicians trained in assaying and weighing gold bullion”. No external auditor was hired; the US Mint, a department of the US government, can audit the gold in cooperation with thousands of other government departments, only an external auditing party can ensure the integrity of an audit.
Again three random compartments were opened (theoretically one or two could have been the same compartments that were opened as in 1953 as no compartment numbers have been disclosed in the audit reports). From the official audit report published in 1975 (download here):
Mint regulations require that a special settlement committee be established to inventory and maintain physical control over the gold as it is being inventoried, weighed, and sampled. We selected the compartments to be audited, and we did not disclose this information until the inventory began. The committee opened 3 compartments and counted and inspected 91,604 bars representing about 31.1 million fine troy ounces [967 tonnes] of gold valued at about $1.3 billion, or approximately 21 per cent of the gold stored at the depository. From a random sample of all melts in the 3 compartments, the committee weighed 95 melts to the 100th part of a troy ounce. The committee also compared the weights and physical characteristics of all gold … inventoried to inventory records.
To verify the gold’s fineness, a bar from each melt weighed was assayed. Gold samples were obtained by taking a tetrahedron-shaped chip, weighing about four-tenths of an ounce, from both the top and the bottom of the representative gold bar. We assigned control numbers to the sample chips, because the assayer could possibly determine, without assay, the gold’s fineness if he knew the value or melt number from which the chips came. The New York assay office assayed the gold and gave us the results for comparison with inventory records. We observed the assaying of the first samples. The results of the assays indicated that the recorded finenesses were within the tolerances the Mint established.
No assay report was included.
In 1975 a Committee was appointed for the Treasury’s continuing audits of U.S.-owned gold stored at the Mint. The operation was designed to audit 10 % of the Treasury’s gold per annum. Inspector General (IG) Eric Thorson stated in 2011 during the hearing by Ron Paul:
In June 1975, the Treasury Secretary authorized and directed a continuing audit of U.S. Government-owned gold for which Treasury is accountable. Pursuant to that order, the Committee for Continuing Audit of the U.S. Government-owned Gold performed annual audits of Treasury’s gold reserves from 1975 to 1986, placing all inventoried gold that it observed and tested under an official joint seal.
The committee was made up of staff from Treasury, the Mint, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The annual audits by the committee ended in 1986 after 97 per cent of the Government owned gold held by the Mint had been audited and placed under official joint seal.
These continuing audits would be the first to examine such a large share of the US official gold reserves, 97 % of all the gold held by the Mint equals to 7,485 tonnes, or 92 % of total US official gold reserves. At the same time, this is where the confusion starts. Let’s find out all there is to know about the continuing audits conducted from 1975 to 1986, as this should be what we’re after, the audit of nearly all US official gold reserves.
From the full report that came out of the congressional hearing in 2011, the US Treasury’s best defense I assume, these are the audit reports in existence since the early seventies:
We are not interested in the audits of financial statements of the Mint, but in audits of the physical inventory gold.
At first sight we can see that not from all years the continuing audits were supposedly performed (1975 to 1986) reports are listed. Only the following audit are disclosed:
- 1974 (released by the GAO 2/10/1975)
- 1977 (released by the GAO 5/5/1978)
- 1980 (released by the GAO 10/1981)
- 1985 (released by the OIG 4/25/1986)
- 1986 (released by the OIG 4/24/1987)
The continuing audits report of 1981 notes audits have been performed in 1975, 1976, 1978 and 1979, but no reference is made to audit reports. Only the amount of gold audited in each of those years is mentioned.
The list from 2011 is entitled “List of audits of US gold holdings” suggesting these are the only audits performed. If more audits were conducted they surely would have been disclosed on the 2011 list, right? Also the ones from 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984. Or were audits conducted, but no reports drafted? More on this later, for now, we’ll focus on the content of the audit reports from the 2011 list:
The first audit report (1974) on the list we’ve discussed above, let’s have a look at the second from 5/5/1978 that covers the audit performed in 1977 (download here).
1977
Reading the report unveils a few problems:
- No external auditor was present.
- 11.7 % , or 536 tonnes, of the gold at Fort Knox was audited, but it’s not mentioned how many bars were counted, weighed and assayed.
- The assay tests found irregularities. From the report:
Two sample melts showed the gold was below the fineness (5 parts per 10,000) permitted by the Bureau. Because of this problem, the vault had to be opened twice more in the presence of the Joint Sealing Committee and the gold reevaluated. This involved considerable time and expense, but was necessary because the fineness of gold must be precisely determined.
On July 29, 1977, bore samples, rather than chips, were taken from the questionable melts and sent to two assay offices for independent evaluations. Half of the samples reassayed were still unacceptable. The Bureau decided that the two melts from which the samples were taken had to be remelted and reassayed. This was done on November 16 and 17, 1977. This time, the gold was within the prescribed level of fineness but below the fineness listed on the inventory schedule. The difference in the original and revalued fineness resulted in a $158.77 adjustment to the records, which was considered insignificant. Previous discrepancies in fineness were attributed to improper melting and casting of the melts in 1920 and 1921. Bureau officials said the remelting process confirmed the validity and integrity of their audit procedures and assays.
- We can ascertain the assay tests at Fort Knox in 1953 were done by drilling holes through the bars; in 1974 and 1977 the assay tests were changed to “taking a tetrahedron-shaped chip, weighing about four-tenths of an ounce, from both the top and the bottom of the representative gold bar”. When this method ‘failed’ in 1977, the committee decided to drill holes, but why was the method of initial assaying changed from drilling holes through the bars, into taking chips from the top and bottom of the bars? When in 1977 the bore samples failed to proof the purity on the inventory list, both melts in question were remelted. But, who processed the remelting? How do we know the metal wasn’t refined/supplemented into higher purity gold? The report states that after the remelting, “This time, the gold was within the prescribed level of fineness but below the fineness listed on the inventory schedule. The difference in the original and revalued fineness resulted in a $158.77 adjustment to the records”. To me it’s not clear what this means. Some kind of adjustment was made and the auditors decided to move on? Didn’t this ring any alarm bells, if irregularities were found in two melts why wasn’t more gold assayed?
- Apart from the negative assay test, the 1977 audit report is not reliable because it doesn’t disclose any information about how many bars were counted, weighed or assayed.
In the next part we’ll continue from the 1981 audit.
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Gold, bitchez. It is money, and nothing else is. But it isn't what makes a man rich. No, that lies within. It's just hard to live without money. It's hard to find yourself without the freedom of money, but it can happen.
Oh and there is no gold in the Treasury. It's all tungsten.
My first thought..
Imagine -
The financial system collapses, as it does every few deacdes, but this time the central banks created a fiat bubble, a bubble built on promises no one would ever pay. Greece defaults, Spain, Italy, then the US and China. Private debt cripples everyone, pensions don't pay out, everything is fucked.
And then somehow people with gold and silver are able to trade for goods. Skill and labor still trump all but even the skilled are asking for precise payment for their labor, as fiat is no longer trusted; good faith and credit just doesn't cut it.
Then people will wonder how they were so easily duped. How easily a man forgets he will need to find food tomorrow for he wants to live for the night.
there's plenty of gold. Of course the people that control the paper also have the pysical gold along with their Eastern Counterparts that are in on the sting. When the dust settles the hearings will be full of the same old testimony......"i don't remember" and "no one could have seen it coming"......sorry.....btw its silver that has them worried......
This is only gvt held gold, the private sector that avoided the 33 confiscation, because of the separation of powers act, (gvt doesn't know/own everything) is still the majority of stored gold, this of course is totally independent of the full faith and credit which is used as todays currency, a store of wealth for tomorrows good deed dooers, verses todays not so good, deed dooers. Tricky indeed.
Looking at the chart from BullionStar, , and making the assumption that the united States Treasury was flat broke in 1933 (hence the 'emergency Orders' and the gold confiscation, and IF the 'current official graphline' is correct, extrapolating the actual reserves by moving the zero-line to the level that intersects this 'confiscation' becomes easy. This is hypothetical (but probably a lot closer to reality). The REAL U.S. Treasury reserves under this calculation are approximately 2,000 metric tons.
Certain points of change in this graph are interesting in relation to world history. 1945, 1968, 1972, 1978, and 1979 were 'interesting' years, geopolitically.
As far as the amount of gold held by the 'private sector', I would actually question your assumption. MOST people (at least, in the CONUS control grid) are so frigging brainwashed and dumbed-down that if you were to offer a silver or gold coin to them in exchange for goods or services, thay would laugh, or call the cops, or look at you with a blank stare.
The people will believe the results of an audit if the independent auditer is ... you guessed it, Goldman Sachs.
It has been 82 years since 1933. The average person has no idea of the history of specie; paper is the 'real' money.
Perhaps this wil help. 1933 the Criminal Fraud UNITED STATES, CORP. INC. goes Bankrupt. The Criminal entity steals the Americans People's Gold & exchanges worthless fiat currency for it.
"The full faith & Crdeit of the American People's" souls / Birth Certificates / labor & land are used as Collateral and securitized bonds traded on the worlds markets to pay back the debt from the bankruptcy of the Criminal Fraud UNITED STATES, CORP. INC. entity.
It's a criminal Fraud system of Debt, Bondage & Enslavement. Run by Criminals & owned by Criminal BANKSTERS.
So I've always heard and read from many people who claim to have been in Ft. Knox and know that there no longer is any gold stored there. That it's all gone.
I've also read and heard that instead of storing gold there, they now use the vaults to house various types of biological weapons and shit like that.
A couple weeks ago I was in Tennessee for work and met a new co-worker who happens to have been stationed at Ft. Knox while in the Army. So eventually as we talked more over a few days we got on that subject and about the economy, gold, etc. and I finally brought up that I heard Ft. Knox no longer held any gold and that it was all just a big lie.
His immediate reaction told me everything I needed to know in a matter of 3 seconds.
He gave me that instant quick stare as if even though he hadn't said anything yet he still felt like I would know that anything he said would be considered a lie. He looked at me for a couple seconds and then looked down and to the right and started knodding and said, "Yeah, there's no gold there anymore. Hasn't been any gold there in decades. It's all just for show.".
His reaction and response, in my opinion, was at least 99% honest and believable. Anyone would feel the same way if they had seen his face and the way he responded to that. Someone couldn't fake that unless they had rehearsed it over and over again and made it a natural reflex. I'm sure you know what I mean. But i haven't known the guy for years...only a few days...so I'll leave a small chance that he's a total sociopath who can act that way at the drop of a dime. I can't know for sure. But unless that's the case, I'd say I'm 99% sure that was his honest and truthful reaction as if he was admitting something that was top secret but in his mind really no longer mattered at all since he really didn't understand the true economic ramifications of Ft. Knox being totally void of the gold the U.S. still claims is there.
He said he had served there and had been down in the vaults and that there's definitely no gold. But he also said that he had no idea if they are now storing deadly biological weapons there instead, but he thought about it quickly and agreed that it would be a logical use for the vaults because of how intricately and tightly they are able to be sealed and how deep down they are. He thought the vaults would be a perfect place to store deadly bio-weapons rather than gold.
I then asked him if he knew where the gold was...was it moved to the Federal Reserve, West Point, JP Morgan vaults, etc., or if it has been sold off long ago. He said he had no idea. He really wasn't up on precious metals or the Fed economic policy, fiat currency and all this stuff.
I gave him a quick run-down of the situation though over the next couple days and recommended he start reading ZH daily. Hope he sees my post today! hahaha!
So I feel 99% sure Ft. Knox is indeed almost completely empty of the stated amount of gold that our treasonous gov-sum claims is still stored there. I'm pretty sure the Chinese know for sure that Ft. Knox is empty and by proxy Russia and many other countries know this as well. It's all a farce.
I don't have any faith that the U.S. holds it's stated 8000+ tons of gold anywhere else either. I bet most of it is all gone...now converted to Chinese kilo-bars never to been seen in the West again for at least a century or more if ever.
Better keep stackin' phyzz, folks. Use our time now to stack that shit away as a hedge against the inevitable collapse of the dollar and all other fiat currencies. It may happen tomorrow, next year, 5 years, or in 10 years. For most of us it will definitely happen within what's reasonably left of our lifetimes...within the next 50 years for sure.
But the availability of stacking phyzz PM's this affordably is not going to last much longer. And once PM values break loose of this fake paper price bullshit, then look the fuck out, or you'll be crushed by the stampede by everyone else scrambling to acquire even just a single ounce of the stuff at massively insane "fiat" prices.
That's when us stackers will both be in real good shape and also an extremely endagered species.
So don't forget to stack up on guns, ammo, food, water filtration, hunting/fishing/camping/medical supplies, etc.
Silver phyzz had a nice day yesterday, but it's still awesomely on sale and massively undervalued compared to any other physical asset in history.
Go out and add more to your stack, bitchez. And have a good weekend.
Out...
+ 100
& if memory serves & singing to the choir, the Trading with the Enemy Act (kna: Emergency War Powers Act) was amended to include citizens as enemies and hoarding gold a crime where if caught, you could be fined (up to $10k) &/or imprisoned. POTUS must sign said Act every four years to continue the "emergency," (the banks ran out of gold) & suspending the Constitution so as to run under Admiralty law (maritime law) & the trustees (Fed (sic) Reserve (sic)) for the BK US operate out of Puerto Rico, an income-tax free zone (officially, because Purto Rico was too far away to efficiently regulate said tax (lulz)).
@ WayPony,
Spot on. +1,000 re hypothecated. It's why I continue to refer to the entity as the Criminal Fraud UNITED STATES, CORP. INC. & it's 50 Franchise affiliatets at the Criminal Fraud CORP. INC. State & Local Municipalites, Courts, Attornies, Judges & Fraudulent Justice System.
IMHO, the bigger question - to whom is all the world's debt owed?
I saw a video a while back where the man on the street was offered a US AGE for its face price. Nobody took the deal.
If anyone walks up to me with the same offer, I'll be sure to buy all he's got!
Unfortunelty many forget that it is not just the banksters stealing via fiat, but the banksters stealing via fiat for on behalf of the Zionists riding the whole system bareback. Their lifestyle depends on those below them, their farm managers, and farm animals, to continue producing and paying.
As such, expect the collapse to be replaced by an SDR based system of grift.
The banksters need to repay us.
The historical record shows that the original Rothschilds were able to create a fractional currency built upon the idea that all their gold in custody would not be asked for on the same day by the depositors.
Afterwards, they were able to float the idea for a fiat system, where notes stood for specie.
Once the specie basis was cut loose, several generations had passed. People accepted 'legal tender' as 'money.'
Thus we have the conception of 'money from thin air.'
You are right- but there are several hundred years of habit and acceptance which need to be remedied.
At some point, IF the Rothschilds do not have total control over the BRICS, there will be an accounting.
I would posit the process is to suck the US into a dry hulk, while building up their next System in Asia.
I believe it was during that time the bankers having problems with monarchs paying their debts so it was decided that the serfs should be given a vote or nominal democracy thereby making them a party to the repayment of the debts the sovereigns incurred.
SDR makes sense. if you do not want a metal standard aka restraining belt then you sell the said metal so it simply isn't there to be considered later. Selling so much and thus watering down any real opportunity to use it as monetary backing and making it totally unimplementable via a confiscation.
The answer to this lies within the files of Dr Beder (Beter) who covered the Fort Knox gold standard and how all the gold was actually long gone in the 1960's...
My first thought is the tunnel and how much of it walked away
I've posted this before. But the last time I saw the depository it needed pressure washed and a weed eater. Since then the tank school is gone . There's no armor based there. The only tanks are at the Patton museum. There's only administrative work there now. Paper work concerning those who's inlistments up , retiring and va etc.
So the Government doesn't have any gold.
How is that news?
If it was news the whole stock and bond shitshow would collapse.
Just print MOAR.
Everything will be fine.
The US Treasury was closed in 1934 and a "Department of the Treasury" was opened. There was no need for a treasury as the USA was bankrupt and the country no longer "owned" any gold. If there is any or all the gold there is supposed to be in Ft. Knox and other places it has been pledged as surety for the ever increasing debt allowed by the Trustees for the US bankruptcy.
That's my take on "US gold reserves".
By the way, everything in the US of A was pledged as surety for the debt. Every ear of corn, every pocket of coal or iron ore, your house and your labor and your children's labor was given as security. Welcome to debt serfdom. The company that owns you gives you currency to use in their store. At some point the company store will close and no other company or farmer will accept that fiat for anything except the board game of Monopoly.
Gee, I hope the US Mint has not been selling corrupted coinage.
That's why I buy from other sources. I have very few AGEs, maybe 2-3; I only have a couple of tubes of ASEs.
Anything after 1964 may be suspect.
I don't think they're that desperate yet. However when the paper fraud starts to unravel, I fully expect that to start happening.
I too own very few of either and prefer other mints where I can get more oz for my FRNs.
And they have even less silver :-)
Central banks hold no silver. There is as much silver above ground as there is gold.
no there isnt.
There is.
its probably a good idea to know what ur talking about br u speak man...
"A very decent job report for the month of January has crushed the gold price last Friday as the yellow metal lost more than $30 per ounce, sending it back to the lowest level in more than a month. Even though there was some support around the $1250 level, we fell right through it on the back of an allegedly good jobs report.
According to the official numbers, approximately 257,000 jobs were created in January but the attention was mainly drawn towards the upwards revision of the November and December numbers, where an additional 147,000 jobs were estimated to have been created. This had a major consequence as it meant that in 2014, more new job were created than any time in the previous 14 years. Theoretically, this sounds great, but the ‘number of jobs added’ does not necessarily improve the quality of life.
And indeed, the hourly salaries were still trending down until last December with a small bounce noticeable in January, but that’s absolutely not enough to get excited again, especially as the growth rate of the economy already seems to be slowing down again, and the expensive dollar will definitely hurt the trade balance of the USA as the total value of exported goods will very likely go down.
Additionally, now the oil price is still at extremely low levels, the total amount of onshore drill rigs in the USA is declining at a rapid pace and we wouldn’t be surprised to see the American economy losing jobs over the next few months which could make the Fed postpone its expected rate hike once again.
The appetite for gold in the Far East remains very strong as specialized website Bullionstar.com estimates another 255 tonnes (!) of gold were withdrawn which indicates January 2015 saw the strongest demand for gold ever in that region. This actually says a lot. Even though the gold price increased throughout the month of January the demand continued to increase as well and that’s quite remarkable.
It’s not just in Asia the demand is picking up, we are positively surprised by the demand for gold and silver American Eagles. In January, the US Mint sold 81,000 ounces of gold and in excess of 5.5 million ounces of silver. That’s massive and almost as much as the two previous months COMBINED! The gold demand was the highest since January last year and the demand for silver eagles almost broke the record of October last year when the Mint ran out of silver…
Source
There’s zero doubt the deep pockets in Asia will be grateful for the most recent drop in the gold price and even in the West people and central banks are starting to wake up. As you all know, the Netherlands have already repatriated a large chunk of their New York-stored gold and Germany has also accelerated their repatriation schedule. The country brought 120 tonnes of gold back home of which 85 tonnes were shipped from the vault of the NY Fed. And this results in another question.If Central Banks continue to publicly state that gold doesn’t have monetary value and that the total amount of gold it has on the balance sheet is irrelevant, why are they all so keen to bring their gold back home?
The retail demand for gold and silver is going up, as evidenced by the official production numbers of the US Mint and it looks like more people are getting prepared or the coming Apocalypse.
http://sproutmoney.com/dont-let-recent-drop-gold-price-fool-us-retail-de...
That has nothing to do with supply.
yes th e mint running out has nothing to do with supply...
u win.
If there isn't enough silver supply above ground, then just pay someone $5/oz to go dig it up......
There isn't.
and that is one reason I prefer silver...."Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen..."
Silver is also used as an industrial metal in solar panels in cell phones. I believe that is one reason it is being manipulated downward. I say buy the silver while it is discounted. We know they are making up their gold reserves numbers! They will be found out eventually. Protect your wealth! Help wake up your friends and family by giving them a candle with a silver coin: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ScentSavers?ref=hdr_shop_menu
exactly...the indespensable industrial applications which "the money of gentlemen" is used in r too many to list...
additionally, it was demonitized by the MoneyChangers in the crime of 1875 precisely because it was the common mans vehicle of protecting and storing the fruits of his labor, they having siphoned up the other only form of money for themselves - Gold...
then comes along Johnson in 1965 by decree declaring that no more of the citizens coinage would contain Silver and why was that????? BECAUSE THE US GOVERMENT STOCKPILES WERE RUNNING ON FUMES!!!!!
as was said b4...the US govenment doesnt have any Physical Silver and it is rarer than Gold.
Great job calling them the mony changers! I beleive if we quit calling them bakers, or the fed, or the EU and called them money changers, people would start to realize what we are up against. Jesus did was a calm peaceful man throughout the Bible, except toward the money changers. We are still fighting the same battles today!
And yes, the government ran out of silver that's why our pocket change is now made of almost worthless zinc!
In a parallel way, Christ challenged TPTB in his own day- and was whacked by the PTB.
Only, that was a part of His plan.
To be loving and selfless enough to die symbolically for man's 'bad karma' he actually defeated the Moneychangers.
It would take a Powerful Divine spark to do what he did!
I am too human to be able to do that, but if the time comes and the wind changes, I will side with Christians.
The amount of money and power used to insert a puppet like Chalky into the WH must have been immense.
Here we have a president at a 180-degree opposition to the prevailing American culture.
Amazing...
Gold is the Currency of Kings
Silver is the Currency of Gentlemen
Barter is the Currency of Peasants
Debt is the Currency of Slaves
Pussy is the Currency of Women
And,
Guns / Lead is the Currency of Patriots.
And bullshit is the currency of politicians.
show - me - the - money
<-----There has been no monkey business with the physical Gold controlled by the US Gvt
<-----There has been nothing but monkey business with the physical Gold controlled by the US gvt
Do that mean the chief and his head law enforcer win a banana?
So here're the best results of the proposed audit. Congress and the Fed agree to a full audit. Which will be of.... their financial statements in accordance with non-GAAP principles, a footnote declaring that Mark to Myth (mark to meth) is OK because the Fed is money good (get it....a tautological, syllogistic bunch of tripe and sophistry) the minutes of the FOMC meetings will be audited with grammatical and spelling errors found resulting in a new set of internal spell check controls.
Nothing of ilk with respect to the gold will happen, because the Fed doesn't have the gold, the Treasury does
Nothing of ilk with respect to the "other asset" line on the Fed's balance sheet will be examined as it is "Immaterial" in the scope of the Big Balance Sheet
All of the currency swaps will be ignored as they're done "Off book" on behalf of Treasury (who are the only ones who act in currency markets and Treasury is a Fed client so can't give up that info...)
Y'all startin' to see my Gist-o-Shit here?
Don't holdchur breath
Booyah, motherfuckers, and the MSM will declare the audit plentiful, well done, amazing and look at them fucking Conspiracy Theorists, how dumb be them, nuh?
All's well
#bankerslivesdontmatter
The gold is visiting China while technically on lease through London., but she's free, and she isn't coming back.
Summary: "And it's gone!"
The banksters need to repay us.
Funny you should mention London because the Crminal Fraud UNITED STATES, CORP. INC. is owned / controlled stock, lock & barrel by The City of London.
"There are thus three connections to the vault, the front door, the back door and the tunnel."
Ok - who's gonna be first...?
Not so sure about China 'defaulting'... I think Xi and Putin both, have something else in mind and in store for the West at a time of their choosing.
Oh yeah and what is that? China continues to build massive ghost cities and fills their current cities with cheap concrete....and oh I forgot Russia is in great financial shape.
You do realize that Russia has an economy, resources, and almost no debt? China has labor and manufacturing.
What do they need US for? Tech? Oh they make that. Rockets? Oh they make that. Healthcare? LOL. Seems we only have paper and Saudis.
Oh, they have gold AND nukes?
Leverage. Some is really real and some is really not. There won't be any easy war of liberation this time around.
The last of the Gold went from the FED, via the tunnel to JP Morgan, to Jamie Dimon's island right before the building got sold to the Chinese.
That's a fact Jack. There is no more gold, and there is no United States of America since the Rumsfeld and Cheney worked with the Saudis to take down the world trade centers.
And if you wanted to take this arguement deeper than the atomic level of gold you would find there was no gold to begin with. So who cares.
Gentlemen,
Please familiarize yourself with the OIG. It sounds super official. Go check out what the OIG is and who controls it.
Note the audits shifted from the GAO to the OIG.
Also note that the OIG "reviews" the Federal Reserves books.
For those too lazy... the OIG is the sock puppet of the Federal Reserve.
Let me ask one question - if you were allowed to walk through the vaults and there was all the gold that is reported in good stead, would your brain explode?
And yes that is an honest question, for every possiblity that there is no gold there only tungenston....there is an equal possibility it just sitting there gathering dust.
Doubtful it is tungsten. This would be a huge project and there really is no need to swap the gold for Tungsten.
I do believe a large amount of the gold was sent to the NY Fed. The NY Fed then sold/leased/hypothicated the gold they were sent.
This is the point of needing an audit. This is also the point of #AuditTheFed.
No one knows just what the Fed is doing and their "Office of Inspector General". The aforementioned so sounds official... A more accurate title would: Federal Reserve Lackeys.
Okay then is the physical gold still in the states regardless of the owner? or is it in Europe or where is it?
But still my question remains the same, if it is not in the vault - fine.....but what happens if it is in the vault sitting there?
Then the audit is done and we can put this topic to bed for another x number of years.
Finding out that we haven't been robbed is the point of an audit. The unknowns that are created in the absense of audits are why audits exist. "Trust but verify"
When this collapses we are going to the dark ages.
Nomadic hoards of homeless people will be roaming everywhere.
Do think the grid will stay up? LOL Detroit’s downtown area has blackouts all the time right now.
Wait until the TVA is abandoned.
And do you think Gold will be the barter of exchange, or will it be beaver pelts?
Hoard cooking oil.
If you are randomly in one of the cities that ‘make it’, you’ll be OK.
If you are in an area that goes dark, woe to you.
This is what ‘they’ get. Have you guys seen this ditty:
Google Maps
Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex, 81st Street Northeast, Nekoma, ND
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Stanley+R.+Mickelson+Safeguard+Complex&ll...
If I had won the Powerball jackpot on Wednesday, I would be horading LIM-49A Spartan and Lim-99A Sprint Anti-Balistic Missiiles!
Cooking oil has a limited shelf life. I store canned ghee instead; it will last a long time unopened -- and even after it's opened it will last a year or more as long as you keep it on the counter (not in a refrigerator) and free from water contamination.
Fur Burgers
Fur Burgers
Audit the gold in Tel Aviv.
"Abe, I have never been down here."
"Amazing, is it not, Sol? The Red Shield built the Knesset with a secret Vault deep under the foundation!"
"Why we must have most of the gold right here!"
"You know how the Irish have a weakness for drink? Well, our weakness is for...this!"
"You mean...?"
"Yes. We are goldaholics!"
Red sign also built their satanic supreme court.
It's temporary. Nixon said it.
A really great article. The documenttation was excellent.
The totally casual attitude about several billion of dollars worth of gold is simply mind boggling. Milestones
18k gold bars....
The purists can turn their noses up at anything less than 99.5 purity, but 75% pure gold works for me if I can get it. I'm not picky. Or proud.
".................. The lawful owner of the US official gold reserves is the US treasury."
The lawful owner of the US official gold reserves is the American people!
This information has now given me the same confidence that I have in the final report of the Warren Commission that investigated the President Kennedy Assasination. That and who has a secret tunnel into the storage location for their precious goods? Looks like our government hired the firm who built the hide-out for Ali-Baba and his fourty thieves!
I tend to agree with you-- but, who thinks the UST are the only govt reps in the world who are 'cheating' quite probably on reserves?
I suspect they all do it to one degree or another.
The difference is that the US is custodian of other nations' gold, which requires more transparency than we have seen!
Yeah, like all the transparency of Kristal Nacht ! LOL
I love Koos Jansen. Not a tinfoil hat in sight. Just facts and figures from official sources. And yet...kind of makes the tinfoil case reality. His research shows you have every reason to question this shit. Good stuff ZH. You need more of this to regain the old zerohedge.blogspot credibility.
I have gold and silver so now what?
If our gold reserves are found to be much less than reported. the following will be presented:
1. unexpected and shocked
2. not that important to the economy
3. will form a committee to report on it
4. it was a useless relic and we don't need it anyway.
5.gold is Not money.
6. more audits would not be in the national interest.
Your not the only one, Mannipples !
We need a special independent audit team .... say Geraldo Rivera, Michael Moore and Gloria Allred ?
I have a question. Where did the US govt get the 8 thousand tonnes of gold from in the first place? Did they tax the citizens and then buy the gold from a miner or did they accept gold in place of taxes from the miners?
Am I wrong or is that not a shit-tonne of gold.
Roosevelt confiscated the 900 fine US coins .... back in the New Deal .... he didn't get them all of course .... the coins were melted into bars .... hence, the not good for delivery status of many .... I'm not the expert here .... in anything .... I just came back to see if I got a few .... niggardly, courtesy up arrows !
At one point the US had 20,000 tons of gold, taken in part as payment for supplying the allies during the war effort and during the reconstruction.
It is interesting that the government keeps the gold or as many of you theorize; the government keeps the illusion of gold reserves. If our fiat is simply backed by our GDP then gold reserves have no real purpose.
The reason you keep it is because of the history of fiat collapses. Virtually all fiat currencies collapse over time or severely erode. I believe our modern dollar has about 3% of the purchasing power of the first dollar printed. Gold is the insurance policy when monetary controls collapse. It is the little thing in the back of the mind for anyone anywhere in the world buying U.S. Treasuries. If all fails...gold! When you buy a bond from Argentina (three defaults) you have no such insurance or assurances. So, your insurance is the higher bond rate to recover as much as possible as quickly as possible. They are essentially junk bonds of the lowest order.
Long term, heavily enforced secrets are always there to hide the truth by definition.