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India's Failing Gold Monetization Scheme: Seizure Imminent?
Submitted by Paul-Martin Foss via The Mises Institute,
India’s newest gold monetization scheme has been a colossal failure. After one month, it has netted only one kilogram (2.2 pounds avoirdupois) out of an estimated 20,000 tonnes (44 million pounds avdp) of privately-held gold. Why is that? Well, let’s look at how the program works.
- Gold-holders turn their gold over to a bank. The banks melt the metal down and provide it to the central bank to loan to jewellers.
- In exchange, the central bank provides gold accounts to the banks on behalf of the gold depositors and pays interest on those deposits.
- The interest rate on those deposits is a little over 2%, while the inflation rate in India right now is over 5%.
- The deposits are time deposits, meaning that depositors receive their principal repaid at the end of the term; short-term depositors receive gold or rupees back, while medium- and long-term depositors receive only rupees.
So you give up all your gold, get at most a -3% rate of return on your investment, and might get both your interest payments and principal paid in rupees that the government has historically devalued at up to 15% per year. And the government wonders why gold-holders aren’t flocking to offload their gold?
But not to worry, the government will make sure this scheme works:
“A finance ministry official said if banks fail to win over temples, the government could intervene directly as it is looking for a big boost to the scheme to keep both imports and the current account deficit under control.”
Shades of 1933 all over again. One would imagine that outright gold confiscation from Hindu temples would result in massive protests and quite a bit of bloodshed. And while most rational people would assume that the government would be smart enough to avoid doing something so drastically stupid, this is the same government that developed the cockamamie gold monetization scheme in the first place. Never underestimate the idiocy of government bureaucrats, especially when those bureaucrats are trying to save face.
Let’s hope for the sake of the Indian people that their government learns its lesson and quietly shelves its futile attempts to monetize private gold holdings. If it really wanted to monetize gold, it would end any restrictions on the importation, transfer, and use of gold as money and allow markets to determine what money they wanted to use. Control is hard to give up, but the Indian economy would be far better off with gold as money instead of rupees.
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Dear leaders, please pay attention to us when we say, no, you are not taking it away...our guns, gold, silver, just sayin...
What’s next in India? Place the Japanese in concentration camps.
You know, keep up with the Roosevelts.
See, this is what you get when you import too much gold.
Us exceptional people on the other hand, know enough to be selling all our gold to them Indians, Chinese and the rest of their buddy buddy pal pals along the Silk Road.
See, we don't have to worry about that, because we can print infinite fiat, all everybody ever wants.
“the Indian economy would be far better off with gold as money instead of rupees”
..as if the control freaks really give a hoot about what’s good for the people and the real economy.
They only care about the numbers on the balance sheets and to stay in good stead with the western monetary regime.
Temple gold is a sacred cow.
Sai Baba Temple givin' it up - 200kilos GOLD to the .gooberment scheme ....
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/To-beat-court-ban-Shirdi-...
from the article :
...."Just days after the Siddhivinayak temple decided to move 40kg of its gold reserves to the government-sponsored Gold Monetisation Scheme, the Shirdi Sai Baba temple has made a similar pledge, but on a much larger scale.
The Sai Baba temple caretakers want to deposit 200kg gold with the government, but the glitch is the Bombay high court ban on the temple trust from melting the gold that has been offered by the devotees over the years."....
You know, I like the Japanese. They are a little quirky and strange, but they are very honest people in my experience. They have honor and respect, and their engineers have grown a lot since the days of them copying the British.
Unfortunately they are a host nation to the squid as well.
"1. Gold-holders turn their gold over to a bank. The banks melt the metal down and provide it to the central bank to loan to jewellers."
My guess is that Krugerands-on-a-Chain might become a very popular fashion accessory.
How do you loan Gold to a jeweler?
Traditionally you sell gold to a jeweler.
Are jewelers forced to register their customers so the gold can be recouped and melted down again at some point?
Obviously the house slaves in the Indian government attended 'elite' Anglo-American schools where they learned . . . to be good house slaves.
The ones with good grades are so good at learning lies.
We have lots of them in America too. All races & national origins - - we have equal opportunity for house slaves.
Slave,
On the odd occasion you offer a nugget of wisdom, but this has got to be the dumbest of the dumb you've contributed.
WTF
Just doing god’s work. Wisdom I’ll leave to the experts…… you know, the Jews.
Escravita
You take abuse well, with good humor.
Don't let them drive you away.
I am an slave, remember? I can take all kind of abuses.
The guys with a California crawl space for rent are interested in renting to you.
Why put Japanese in Camps? Are they the ones buying the gold in India?
“A finance ministry official said if banks fail to win over temples, the government could intervene directly as it is looking for a big boost to the scheme to keep both imports and the current account deficit under control.”
Stealing from churches/temples being contemplated? -How very Jacobin..
I'm surprised they don't just levy some crazy high property taxes on the churches/temples and force payments in Gold or sale of the Gold to make the tax payments.
> Gold-holders turn their gold over to a bank. The banks melt the metal down
The fact that the banks melt the gold down is reason, right there, that temples will not part with their gold. Irreplaceable history would be lost during the melting.
Lets see trhem start with the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
The Indian armed forces are way overrepresentd with Sikhs in the officer corp.
Indira Ghandi learned the hard way about pissing off Sikhs.
Ain't that the sikhs
This hole thing is Sikh!!
I think the only Seizures over there will be in the PM body when the gold owners start stoning him...
The fucking BANKS, whether Indian, British, American or Canadian, want control over the collateral value of the deposits. The Indian populace are pretty intelligent in that paycheques get converted to gold very quickly leaving the banks no COLLATERAL upon which to lend. This scheme will fail.
Ghandi was no dummy.
I'd fight Ghandi
Isn't that handi?
I'll take a handi!
I'd beat obama more stupid with a 9 iron.
That gold creates nothing, builds nothing, solves nothing, cures nothing, secures nothing..
The ONLY collateral in the world is HUMAN PRODUCTIVITY.
Human Productivity has no guarantee as there is currently a vast oversupply of human potential productivity and an astonishing lack of demand for that productivity....which means that it has extremely low cost and very high storage and maintanance expenses.
(Yes the beasts do need to be housed and they do need to eat. And then they breed...like rabbits.)
WHEREAS...
The available Gold is real, it is not a "potential", and there is comparatively little effort involved when transfering that hard good or using it for collateral. Storage and maintanace costs are minimal when compared to that of this vaccouus idea "Human Potential".
Gold is value dense whereas Human Potential is just as light as air.
I was going to save thsi for FoneStar but I will expose it here so that we may all hammer him in unison...
The alleged founder of Bitcoin sold that in order to buy...GOLD. Gee...I wonder why.
http://www.gata.org/node/16028
You are a moron of a first degree. "Human Productivity has no guarantee--" Guarantee to what? Guarantee of what?
Productivity is independent of demand supply mechanism.
"The ONLY collateral in the world is HUMAN PRODUCTIVITY."
So I should sell my gold and buy slaves instead?
Human collateral is wasted by government bureaucrats. Gold is a promise that is difficult to take back. Government promises are not only worthless but are also destructive over time.
Interesting to note that while the broad populations of both China and India have long histories of acquiring and passing gold down through generations, the government of the former is actively encouraging such ownership, while that of the latter is stupidly attempting to steal that wealth from the masses.
As the author suggests, any such efforts are sure to fail spectacularly.
One can suspect that "seizure imminent" = "revolution imminent"
Fail? Hell, they got a whole kilo back.
They probably will at some point. The problem with confiscation is that you have to know who has gold first. The temples are a no brainer target. WTH is going on in India that their .gov is this desperate already? Indians are not going to fall for this, they know their gold.
I think they need to do an interview with the guy who forked over the one pound of gold already.
My guess is that he is a distant relative of the bank president out priming the pump or else he hasn't yet learned how to color inside the lines.
They loan the gold to jewelers. Define "jewelers"" and where are they, New York?
Tel Aviv probably, or maybe Bruges.
Perhaps they cut diamonds too, not only using DeBeers to hold inventory off the market, but enforcing the Kimberly Accords so that small competitors aren't even allowed to get off the ground.
The definition of "current account deficit" is interesting in the post-gold standard world. It's also interesting because of the fact it represents a "government" aggregation of individual and corporate transactions, writ into some kind of quasi-religious belief system that apparently makes the world go round.
Rabbit holes. They are deep.
Ok guys. Here's something. You need to mine the gold first.
U no take temple gold!
VISHNU ACKBAR!!!
..from the link i posted upthread :
...Just days after the Siddhivinayak temple decided to move 40kg of its gold reserves to the government-sponsored Gold Monetisation Scheme, the Shirdi Sai Baba temple has made a similar pledge, but on a much larger scale.
The Sai Baba temple caretakers want to deposit 200kg gold with the government, but the glitch is the Bombay high court ban on the temple trust from melting the gold that has been offered by the devotees over the years.
If TSHTF as so many PM cultists believe, then the very first thing that the regimes will outlaw and confiscate is PMs.
Governments don't care about PMs in public hands, the amount is tiny, and the majority of it is in jewelry. In the event of a global SHTF, PMs will have only token value compared to today. It is specifically becasue of a functioning and reasonably robust world economy that PMs are high value right now.
They will however confiscate guns and ammo.
Molon Labe
Anything legal that I spent my money to get is mine. Includes guns & ammo.
Or at least what I have left after so much fell off the boat that afternoon.
I'm pretty sure everyone here in my county will happily line up yo turn over all their guns, ammo, and PM. Not
Ain't gonna HAPPEN! If all the gun owners march down to the local county courthouse WITH their firearms, there will be no politicians there to collect them.
Who in India would enforce a confiscation? Gold is part of their life.
Not a single person who's posted, or the author of the article have actually said WHY the Indian government wants the gold.
It's very simple, the Rupe is a closed currency (not exchanged outside India), and India has a real problem with FX. Importing gold uses up a very substantial amount of their FX reserves. So, they want to "reuse" gold that's already in the country.
So, no, they aren't going to confiscate gold, like most of the conspiracy theorists, and posters here believe. Why would they confiscate gold just to give it back to jewellers?
pretty soon Russia, Iran, China etc will trade in gold with them. So using gold would reduce current account by becoming a reserve.
No, they won't trade in gold with India, ever. (or at least in your lifetime)
They will however set up trade in each others currencies instead of the US dollars or Euros, but even then, that's going to take a couple decades or more.
No, it'll take 9 centuries. Minimum.
No, you are just confusing with the timetable Germany gets its gold back.
Well btw two Indian Temples are planning to deposit 40 KG and 200 KG worth of gold in Modi's Gold Monetisation Scheme. Indian domestic gold value is worth 1 Trillion $ and more. Citizens were smart enough as they arent interested in exchanging their physical gold for paper promises. In India citizens hardly trust government, believe me.
Rest if I've to speak in favor of this scheme then I must say that due to lack of awareness and education most of the indians still don't trust govt. Do you know how many In dians have bank accounts? Only 40% of India's populations owns a bank account. Modi government last year introduced another scheme called Zero Balance Account, where citizens are allowed to open ba k accounts with no money. It's a nice trick to tax citizens too.
And I heard the people say................`From their cold dead hands
'Boating accident'
"Let's hope... that the government learns its lesson."
Comedy gold.
INDIANS HAVE REALLY BEEN VERY SMART TO PUT THEIR SAVINGS INTO GOLD. GOLD WILL BECOME A RESERVE CURRENCY IN THE EAST.
Considering the corrupt nature of banks and governments, perhaps platinum and palladium are better investments.
Diversification, even within PMs, is almost always a good idea.
It's not so much that PMs are awesome but that fiat is unbelievably dumb.
AS LONG AS THE USA KEEPS EMPLOYING MILLIONS OF INDIANS THE INDIAN GOVT WONT MAKE GOLD A RESERVE.
You really don't know much about international finance, it's obvious.
One has nothing to do with the other. Except in the mind of a gold bug.
Are there now or going to be FEMA camps in India? Just how many billions of people can they place in FEMA camps? Are FEMA camps a franchise? So violations to win a FEMA camp pass are guns in the US, gold in India, body parts in China? Other qualifiers somewhere are speaking ill of Zionists, failure to honor the Prophet (profit), polluting the environment, speaking against the government, denying global warming, being a Christian, suspected of having bad thinking, letting the shadow of a passing monarch fall on you. The list it would appear makes walking a straight path very narrow.
Are there now or going to be FEMA camps in India?
No, they'll just put them Indians on reservations, like we did.
im surprised it netted a kilo.
the government put up the first kilo, you know, to prime the pump.
Governments have become so arrogant, they don't even try hiding their lyin' and stealin' from their citizens.
"We told you we're going to take it. Either the 'easy' way on the 'hard' way.
And you ain't got no guns, sucker."
Best way to hold onto what you've got is to make sure nobody knows you've got it.
Nauka vihaar durghatana
Translation,...............................
boating accident
Eh?
It will interesting to see which country overthrows the varmits, first.
Doesn't the "I" in BRICS nations, the alternative money system to the petro dollar stand for India? What the hell kind of monetary system is made up of insolvent governments? They don't have enough assets to compete with a thin air fiat system? I'm thinking guns, ammo, even bows, arrows and slingshots make for a better asset class than anything else on the horizon except maybe for stored food.
India is still extremely poor. We just came back from a big trip there.
Don't let anyone con you re the BRICS Bank, it's just a Goldman Sachs marketing slogan.
True India is still a poor country with only 77-78% literacy rate . Btw where have you been in India ?
Are you from US?
USA, yes.
Bombay, Pushkar (a camel fair there), Jaipur, Panna Reserve, Agra, Varanasi (nasty pollution aggravated by all the cremations along the Ganges) and Delhi. All on a tour.
We took the extended trip for three nights in Kathmandu, Nepal as well. Nepal is very poor, suffered an earthquake last April, and is being pushed around by India (fuel embargo). India acting like colonialists...
But I hear that South Africa has a booming morgue supply industry.
the problem in India isn't gold or the lack thereof. the problem is water. A much worse problem.
http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2015/12/10/how-unchecked...
of course neither is the real problem, population is the real problem (or fucking, that could be the underlying problem).
Indians are famous for snapping out in mass as I recall.
In the coming WWIII it was shaping up to be US, Israel, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, France, the NATO alliance, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and select ME countries against Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan? Iraq? select East European countries and possibly India. This has the look of India calling in to report a flat tire on the bus so they're going to be delayed. Never mind Africa or South America or Mexico. They will be fighting among themselves. Brazil will be torn between hosting the Olympics or war and they can't afford either. How are all these broke ass governments going to fight to the end while at same time can't afford a taco?
Absolutely right. Bloody Indians are not going to lift a finger to help the world for the good or bad guys. Flat tire indeed.
But Brazil has free Baby-Ruth bars for all the swimmers.
Ha!
That kilo entered into the scheme by having found the only guy in the country who had the right combination of two particular charictaristics. First, he was well off enough to own a kilo of gold. Second, although relatively wealthy, lacked education adequate to perform mathematics at an early elementary level.
Pitty the fool.
It does not say the kilo was turned in by one owner - I suspect a number of people turned in relativly small amounts, but we don't know from this article.
Actually the team that deviced the scheme asked members to place some gold to kick start the scheme. Sort of seed capital.
And they came up with only 1 kg.
It was on short term deposit and promptly taken out.
Imagine a hundred staff operating a fund with 1 kg of gold.
Who's the stupid guy that dropped off the 2lbs? Really, I got an amazing bridge to sell that guy.
Wonder if there is a cool off period on that transaction?
Confiscation is impossible in India.
A bunch if people come in on a plane from Dubai with 1 kilo each. Make it mandatory that they deposit their gold for paper. That will work for a couple of days and get a hundres or so klos til word gets out.
<-- CabalA$$LickerLiarAddictHomObamma :
'We have to twist arms when countries don't do what we need them to'
West always loots gold back, I hope the ruling 'nationalists' are not working for west (with arm twisted)
Well, you know how all governments are.....
If you won`t give up land and treasure, they will kidnap you and your offspring to use as cannon fodder, to go steal someone elses land and treasure.......
Like the American civil war......pay 300 dollars, or get in the trenchs......
Whaaaat? The BJP confiscating Hindu temple gold???
India is too disorganized for the government to successfully confiscate gold.
Paul Martin Faus
I understand that you need to do something to make a living, still stop writing total rubbish. I know Americans are generally totally "ignorant" on anything that goes on outside of thier living room - still try to use the thing you hang your hat on once in a while. The ruling party in India has its root in Hindusim and has its vote bank in Hindus. In any case no police force or army unit will enter into a temple to enforce such a scheme. The only thing this idea will ensure for sure is a neck tie party to the nearest tree for the perpetrator.