Currency Wars - Russia Officially Adds 19.5 Tonnes of Gold Reserves in October Alone
From GoldCore
Currency Wars - Russia Officially Adds 19.5 Tonnes of Gold Reserves in October Alone
Gold is trading at USD 1,680.50, EUR 1,268.60, GBP 1,084.30, CHF 1,554.30, JPY 130,130 and RUB 53,210 per ounce.
Gold’s London AM fix this morning was USD 1,676.00, GBP 1,084.02, and EUR 1,263.86 per ounce.
Yesterday's AM fix was USD 1,699.00, GBP 1,094.72, and EUR 1,270.38 per ounce.
Gold is marginally lower in all currencies today. A myriad of financial and economic risks are supporting the yellow metal at these levels.
Market participants continue to be surprised by gold’s continuing weakness and some are even questioning gold’s safe haven status. However, the fundamentals of broad based global physical demand remain very sound as evidenced by the central bank gold buying data today.
Russia bought 19.5 metric tons of gold in October bringing their total gold reserves to 871.1 tons according to IMF data released today.
Belarus increased holdings by 1 ton, Colombia by 1.2 tons, Kazakhstan by 3.2 tons and Mexico by 0.9 ton, the data show. Germany reduced reserves by 4.7 tons and Tajikistan cut reserves by 0.4 ton, the data show.
Thus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Belarus and Mexico added a combined 25.7 metric tons of gold to reserves in October, after gold prices corrected from record highs.
Cross Currency Rates including Russian Ruble
While 25.7 tonnes is a lot of physical gold in tonnage term (given very small size of the global physical bullion market) , it is very small in fiat currency terms as at current market prices (gold averaged $1,671.25 last month according to Bloomberg) its value is a meager $1.38 billion.
Thus, Russia’s purchase of 19.5 tonnes is valued at a tiny $1.05 billion.
Bloomberg reports that Kazakhstan’s assets increased 3.2 tons to 73.6 tons, Colombia’s gained 1.2 tons to 10.4 tons, Belarus expanded assets by 1 ton to 31.9 tons and Mexico added 0.9 ton to take holdings to 106.3 tons, the data show. Germany cut reserves by 4.7 tons to mint commemorative coins and Tajikistan cut 0.4 ton of gold.
Germany’s gold reserves are at 3,396.3 tons, the IMF data show. The country is the second-biggest holder after the U.S., according to the World Gold Council. A Bundesbank spokesman confirmed the sale German gold and said it was done to mint commemorative coins, which is the only reason it sold bullion during the past few years.
Central banks are expanding reserves for the first time in a generation due to unprecedented monetary and systemic risk.
Purchases may reach 450 tons this year, according to the World Gold Council. Central banks and government institutions officially bought 142 tons last year, IMF data shows.
Astute analysts continue to point out that this is just the officially declared purchases and many central banks and especially the Peoples Bank of China continue to quietly accumulate gold reserves.
Emerging market and or creditor nation central banks have long been diversifying out of U.S. dollars. Now they are equally concerned about the euro and other fiat currencies such as the yen and pound.
Gold in Euros – 1 Year (Daily)
These central banks, including China and Russia, hold huge U.S. dollar and other fx reserves. Even a small shift to gold will have a major effect on its price.
Despite the increase in central bank gold reserves, their central banks still only hold some 5% of their reserves in gold.
This percentage will likely increase significantly in the coming months as they continue to diversify their currency reserves.
Even a small portfolio reserve allocation into gold would create a very large increase in demand for gold.
The Russian government is aggressively adding gold bullion to its gold and foreign currency reserves and their gold buying appears to be accelerating.
This trend may continue to accelerate given the increasing tensions between Russia and the U.S. over Syria, the Middle East. Missile defence in Europe and other geopolitical and economic disagreements.
Yesterday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to target and, if necessary, destroy the U.S. missile defence shield in Europe once it is built (see video below).
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently accused the United States of living beyond its means "like a parasite" on the global economy and said dollar dominance is a threat to the financial markets.
Medvedev and Putin knows that a prerequisite for strong economy and powerful country is a strong and internationally respected currency and increasing gold reserves helps to protect the Russian currency from any possible economic turbulence or instability.
In 2007, the Head of External Reserves in the management division of Russia's Central Bank, Maria Gueguina argued that holding gold acts as a buffer against political and economic uncertainty.
In June 2004, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Central Bank, Oleg Mozhaiskov, told a meeting of the London Bullion Market Association in Moscow that western central banks had been rigging the gold market to the detriment of the developing world.
Mozhaiskov said that "although there are only a few reserve currencies, an appalling lack of discipline is demonstrated by the U.S. dollar. As things stand today, the United States is indebted to the external world to the tune of $3 trillion. This sum actually exceeds the total official currency reserves of all the nations of the world -- including the USA. . . The evolution of the reserve role of the American currency in recent years gives grounds for a pretty pessimistic prognosis. The relationship between the state of the dollar and the value of gold is obvious. In relation to our discussion today, this means that gold continues to have particular monetary attraction in the minds of all prudent financial investors. . . .
The internal imperfections of the international monetary system (which I spoke about earlier) have already led to a number of regional financial crises and still carry the danger of larger upheavals. Under these conditions, the growing interest of investors in real assets, gold in particular, is more than justified."
Might Russia and China use gold in order to undermine U.S. political and economic dominance?
There is certainly the possibility that they may use gold as a geopolitical weapon against the U.S. and as a way of furthering their growing global political and economic aspirations.
Putin's endorsement in 2005 of the Russian Central Bank's plans to diversify the Russian reserves out of fiat currencies and debt instruments and into gold bullion was seen by some as as much a political act as an economic one.
Putin's overt and PR like choreographed endorsement of gold was replete with many interesting and highly unusual photos.
It was the first time in recent years that a head of state of one of the larger and more powerful G8 global players has expressly endorsed its central bank buying gold and probably the first time that a head of state has been photographed many times holding and admiring gold bullion bars.
Importantly, it was central bank buying that broke the back of the anti-gold cartel or the London Gold Pool in the late 1960s early 1970s. This paved the way for the massive bull market of the 1970s.
Putin's calculated gesture may have been the most important statement on gold by a head of state since French President de Gaulle praised gold as the ultimate from of money and wealth: "There can be no other criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence."
Some have posited that Putin may have been sending a "shot across the bows" of the U.S. government as De Gaulle was doing some 35 years ago. Putin and many in Russia are increasingly nervous and wary of Washington's increasing military and economic presence in what they have always considered their backyard - Eastern Europe, Eurasia and the Caspian.
Russia, like China and other 'strategic competitors' to the U.S. are aware of the predicament which the U.S. finds itself in. While it is the world's remaining superpower and overwhelmingly superior to all its rivals in military terms, it has a dangerously exposed Achilles' heel in the form of its fiat paper reserve currency, over dependence on Middle Eastern oil, its massive indebtedness and balance of payments issues.
Russia, like China, is now one of the U.S.' creditors and thus has considerable leverage which it has so far chosen not to exercise. Should it do so there would obviously be a marked increase in geopolitical tension and the potential to create real instability in capital markets and even an international monetary crisis.
Given continuing currency debasement by the US and other debtor nations, the simmering currency wars of recent months may soon heat up.
NEWS
(Bloomberg) -- Biggest Gold Hoard Ever Bolstering Bullish Bets From Traders
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-25/biggest-gold-hoard-ever-bolster...
(Reuters) -- Gold ticks lower; heads for 2nd straight weekly drop
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/25/us-markets-precious-idUSTRE7AK...
(Reuters) -- Gold profits from bargain hunters, euro gain
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/24/us-markets-precious-idUSTRE7AK...
Medvedev: Russia will deploy deterrent to Nato missile shield – Video
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/nov/24/medvedev-russia-nato-m...
COMMENTARY
(24HGold) -- Adrian Douglas: Central Banks are NOT Ordinary Gold Investors
http://www.24hgold.com/english/news-gold-silver-central-banks-are-not-or...
(Business Insider) -- RICHARD RUSSELL: The Gold Skyrocketing Phase Still Lies Ahead
http://www.businessinsider.com/richard-russell-the-gold-skyrocketing-pha...
(ZeroHedge) -- European Bailout Time Of Death: EFSF Cut In Half Due To "Market Conditions"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/european-bailout-time-death-efsf-cut-half-...
(ZeroHedge) -- Pictures From A Latvian Bank Run As MF Global Commingling Comes To Town
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/pictures-latvian-bank-run-mf-global-commin...
(The Telegraph) -- Death of a Currency as Eurogeddon Approaches
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/8913884/Death-o...
In Nervous Market, Gold Gains Respectability (When was it disreputable?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/business/global/in-nervous-market-gold...
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Russia is buying up gold???!!!
Don't they know what the sheep have been told?
A traditional stone
That only fools own
That won't keep you warm in the cold
Russia, China and various other countries around the world are moving to gold and our dumbshit monetary leaders talk as if gold is a "barbarous relic".
Nothing is more unnerving to our monetary leaders than widespread accumulation of REAL MONEY. It's the legal equivalent of a mass boycott of tax payments.
I agree. Owning gold is like breaking free of the matrix.
Gold is just a fad over a thousand years period. It will soon go away like everything else. :)
Give or take a Millennium
This is just a fad. Gold flows through markets as it finds its way around the world. It flows from places that have too much gold to those that have too little. In countries that have too much the gold price will fall leading to inflation; in those with too little the gold price will be very high.
When this is all over and we have endured the collapse the next biggest money spinner will undoubtedly be to establish trading contacts between countries to make benefit from these flows as the market settles itself down. After 50 years of having no gold in circulation the potential for benefit is huge, but there is no doubt that the gold flows initially will be in no way linked to market demand for it, which is why countries that collect too much gold are in as much trouble as those that collect too little...
Market forces must decide who needs what and when...
Central banks have been a big driving force in the gold market for decades. Ignore them at your own peril.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/305766-following-the-big-money-to-gold
Russia should know; the only thing that bottomed out the old ruble was gold
That's one very interesting comment, sir (nice picture you have here, btw)! May I ask you what is that particular event you're talking about and what is this 'old rouble', maybe the Soviet one?
its discussed quite well in jim rickards new book Currency Wars. im on chapt 7 currently.
Another MillionDollarBonus.... Yeah right a fad. 5,000 years fad and counting.
Assignat introduction in 1789- in France. Hyperinflation
Continental DOllar Fiat in US - Hyperinflation
Greenback introduction in the civil war 0--- hyperinflation
Mark in Weimar with no GOdl --- hyperinflation
US debt destruction of 1932 --- Devaluation of Gold, so GOld gets 75% increase and then you re-invest at 4 times earnings-- sweet.
Of course if you get 6-7 times P/e rediversify we are at 15, so we have some way to go....
Gold will suck at some point, I will get out of it when the dividen yield on some comapnies, if adjusted to inflation gets me some nice fat return of 7% and above. Nothing less. We have some way down to go.....
and perhaps maybe you might want to go and actually read the comment again...
this time in full...
That is because we have none, Clinton an Rubin sold it all. Another Goldman Sachs gift to the American people.
I think the Russians should buy GLD instead. ;)
Yes....GLD is much lighter.....almost as light as air.
It is our dumbshit monetary leaders who are the barbarous relics.
There once was a blog so pernicious
it had news and pics sooo delicious
readers rejoiced in delight
the fantastical flight
of markets engineered to fail by the joos.
+1 imitation (of LK) is flattery
-1 really, really bad miss on amphibrachic meter, dood
I'm enraged about our current situation so much so I cannot even compete with LK!
And despite all my rage I'm still just a rat in a cage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-r-V0uK4u0
Hey CG
I've asked you now twice*(n I did it real nice)
to stop sowing Hasbara disinfo,
if you do it agin, you won't jus lose some friends,
but also yur cred by the brimfol! {poetic license invoked on the o}
*http://www.zerohedge.com/news/russia-retaliates-against-us-puts-radar-st...
if you so enraged by da situation, why yu gotta spread the sionist lies here? CatbirdSeat is TelAviv trolldom agitprop.
Hey Mayhem....amphibrachic awesome wordsmithing dood! Thanks ...I never knew that one existed... Crossword heaven!
Only ghays do crosswords.
Hey check out the photo in this one. LoL!
http://mycatbirdseat.com/2011/11/us-military-should-%E2%80%9Cjust-say-no...
"The Zionists have a down payment on the White House, and they own Congress free and clear. Zionist sources are said to provide roughly half of the bribe money euphemistically known as “campaign contributions.” They’ve turned the entire US political class into a gang of treasonous whores who daily pledge undying allegiance to the Israeli flag.
So who can stop them? Who can prevent a ruinous war on Iran?
Only the US military."
joos ruined his meter.
am·phi·brach
(mf-brk)
n.
A trisyllabic metrical foot having one accented or long syllable between two unaccented or short syllables, as in the word remember. [Latin amphibrachys, from Greek amphibrakhus : amphi-, amphi- + brakhus, short; see mregh-u- in Indo-European roots.]
ZH has a limerick writer,
Whose meter could really be tighter.
Despite his grand plan,
His verses won't scan,
And his spelling of "joos" can't be triter.
'Some have posited that Putin may have been sending a "shot across the bows" of the U.S. government as De Gaulle was doing some 35 years ago. Putin and many in Russia are increasingly nervous and wary of Washington's increasing military and economic presence in what they have always considered their backyard - Eastern Europe, Eurasia and the Caspian.'
Too bad De Gaulle is gone and now there is... Sark.
I wonder how long it will be until Obama and Timmy label Putin a "financial terrorist" threatening US interests? That picture is probably more scary to TPTB than Ahmadinejad posing with a nuclear weapon.
Ok everyone can start blowing each other here now - "Gold Bitchez" and "Keep stacking!" blah blah........I picked up an eagle Wed. :P
Gold or silver?
Fuck YOU ,fuck wadd..Go eat your linen
with so many huge leveraged positions of financial securities worldwide one never knows the reason for any particular strength/weakness, but I would guess the rumor out of europe last night that Germany will agree to jointly back eurobonds but only if countries get down to 3% budget deficits, and also allow voluntary departure from euro, would be highly contractionary/deflationary (some countries would go to great depression x5) is weighing on gold. This is far from the 'printing to infinity is inevitable' trajectory.
Germany will agree to jointly back eurobonds but only if countries get down to 3% budget deficits
That little "only if" clause is the ultimate political sleight-of-hand. Like when Daffy Duck sells Porky pig a $1 million insurance policy for a black eye...only if...it occurs between 3:55 and 4:00, on the fourth of July, during a hailstorm, by a herd of stampeding elephants in your livingroom...
...and one baby zebra.
(only if)
:D
Please. Germany will back eurobonds if Italy and Spain, etc. pledge their gold as collateral AND Deutschland is first in line to seize if they fail.
Next will be videos of Putin bench lifting it.
And bar bending and coin chewing and and aa aaaaaa and golden showers and uh mmmm rouble rubbing no ih m ah teleprompter twiddling no not that either Mevendev meddling mineral mining yeah mineral mining gold digging Putin panning and uh have him open the mine next to the nuckleheads on on Gold ah Gold Rush yeah, then claim the country back because Sewards check bounced yeah drama yeah
another fucking kinetic action
I'm goin' golfing
That will be one Dos Pesos for the green fee and cart sir.
opulence...he is it
or him playing a 24k golden violin like stradivari.
Join the bear and crush the Zionist lobby!
Putin, the newest write in candidate for 2012!
I would vote for him over Obama.
As bad as Obama is, you do not want a Russian style government. They are where we are headed, not where we want to go.
We're still not buying gold 'centrally'. I'd say Russia has evolved beyond where we will be.
I did not claim they are stupid, indeed they are, in large part, the reason for Russia's resurrection as a world power. They understand economics and geopolitical opportuniy. However, theirs is not a model of government I would like to live under. Can you say fascism?
Ill agree, except pleas look up the meaning of Facism and tell me who is who.
I know the meaning of fascism... The oligarchical control of government that uses coercion and propaganda, rather than the will of the people, to rule. It is often called corpratism because of the inordinate influence of corporate leaders with the government.
Though the Russian system is unique it uses the tools of most authoritarian governments, and, since it allows for private ownership and some economic freedom (mostly for the oligarchical class) it has moved away from it's communist past. It now more closely resembles fascism than any other form of government.
And America is not fascism?
yeah no shit, I really can't tell much difference these days
It's not facist. The country is too ethnically diverse to ever hold together under facist rule. Authoritarian Capitalist in everything but name is more like it
Who wouldn't you vote for ahead of Obama?
It took me a few minutes to come up with an answer but I found him.
http://www.lolviral.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/hippodude1.png
ROFLMFAO! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Can't stop laughing... can't even breathe.... thass funnah! Thanks I needed that
Well, you'll probably laugh about it, but actually there is a short story about this, by russian journalist and satirist Dmitrii Bykov. It's called "How Putin Became President of the USA" and actually it's hilarious to say the least... I doubt that there is English translation of it available, but just in case you have russian-speaking friends or any other opportunity to read it in russian, I'd recommend it with both hands!
Market participants continue to be surprised by gold’s continuing weakness
Gold is up 19% since the beginning of the year - paper gold, that is - and yet the "market" marvels in its weakness. "Recency bias" abounds, and many "market participants" remains unable to see beyond the windshield.
Gold reserve accumulation is increasingly taking center stage over traditional race-to-the-bottom currency wars.
CRIMEX is mortally wounded from the MFG theft; and the supposed vault contents may soon miraculously disappear (an accounting error, dontcha know). The next 3 delivery months should be verrrrrrrrrrrrrry interesting.
I hear the echo in Ft. Knox rings louder than at Crimex's vault.
Yes and when Russia demands gold in payment for natural gas and winter wheat instead of your monopoly money you are going to find out that you can in fact eat it. Or better said, you better have some if you plan on eating and staying warm. I mean what are you going to do try to murder Putin and Wen Jiabo like you did Gaddafi when he decided to use gold?
You can't eat it but your better have it if you plan on eating in 2015 Bitchez. No one is going to want your benny bucks and euros.
But go ahead and keep suppressing prices. 30% of new money created in the last six months and gold is only up 18% for the year and silver 2%. No worries the East probably don't want a barbarous relic with a 6000 year history anyhow. after all its just a rock right? Right? RiGht? RIGHT/right?
I think that when Russia and China....China mainly..gets enough gold...and other commodities..they will make this call....they will require something else other than the dollar to buy thier goods....they DO think long term...we do not...
Yes. Should China begin trading in gold for energy commodities w/Russia and MENA, it's game over and we will see the "rockets' red glare."
Yes thats the ticket. Hey lets wake up the sleeping bear who will sit back and dare you to come to Siberia in your desert storm camo. And as petroleum based lubricants freeze up in your Horwitzer the fuckers are still shooting you with guns oiled with bubber and seal oil. Just ask a Nazi how that will work out. LOL
All I'm saying is that the U.S. is no longer an economic superpower. It's an IOU superpower with the biggest printing press. But eventually China may be able to call the U.S.'s bluff. If and when they do, the only true super power status the U.S. has (military) will be chaotically unleashed to great detriment.
Collapsing currencies becomes a race to real money. Not just what each sovereign claims and has "on the books," but what's physically inside its borders. The emperor has no clothes...least not enough to keep warm.
fracking has saved the FRN for now
And we'll all tell China where to stick it when they expect their deliveries of commodities and food. That's China's big problem...not enough resourses in the homeland for all those people PLUS the huge exporting business. In the end, it evens out. China can't get too pushy.
Really? Yes, the Chinese are dependent upon a certain import/export cadence. So shift away from today's currencies and what happens to the U.S.? It's the equivalent of an economic great wall around the U.S. and what do you get - civil armageddon. And everyone knows that.
So it becomes a question of which fuse is shorter - the time China can survive short resources, or the time the U.S. can survive with no ability of the people to buy anything?
Just food for thought.
Indeed. Not only that, but as busy as China has been securing resources with the rest of the BRIC nations and Africa.....how much longer will they be dependent on U.S. wheat/food? Methinks they will cast off that remaining bit of leverage sooner than we think?
We dismiss the wakening dragon at our own peril. Not that it isn't all part of the greater global plan. I'm quite sure TPTB are working towards the next much desired shooting war. The asian, middle-eastern, and western elites will all be clinking top-shelf liquor in some sequestered resort area while they have the world's sheeple shooting each other in a nice war which will keep the MIC money flowing.
When the dust settles, they will still be there, richer than ever, in greater control than before, with a smaller increasingly subdued population of debt-slaves and worker-drones to deploy on the next global chessboard.
yeah because that food shit just magically grows everywhere else.
If you think nations like brazil are going to happily sell out to China when they didn't sell out to us, you're in dreamland
Ever heard of Africa?
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/9937
FYI food is a strategic resource. Compare the US vs, well, any other country.
'just sayin...
Bingo! We've got the world by the balls by controlling their food. All the GM and hybrid crops that you can't get good seed from we've been slowly sending everywhere. One year without new seeds and they starve. The world is more fucked up than you imagine!
maybe a Russian and Chinese regional gold backed currency???
China will only do this if they can eat the $3 Trillion in US debt they currently own. Right now they cannot, and their banks are being propped up by central government. They are thinking longterm, probably positioning themselves with PMs to be first out of the shelter after the shitstorm is over.
no they fucking aren't
China is using a lot of their US Treasuries to buy up millions of acres of farmland and oil properties across Africa and South America, or as loans for infrastructure projects (built by Chinese contractors) to build good relationships for access to farmland and oil. And no unpleasant strings about Human Rights and such. So actually China will be able to eat some of their $3 trillion in US debt by trading it to South American and African countries, who are more than happy to take it for land, roads, bridges, power plants, hydroelectric dams, irrigation dams, refineries, ports, etc. A lot of the money that does not get immediately recycled to Chinese building contractors will end up in Swiss bank accounts, but China will have preferential access to agricultural land and oil.
But China doesn't have the military to DEFEND all that "empire" of theirs. Those shipment will stop...then China becomes an isolated "island" with too many people to feed. Good luck getting that food all the way from Africa.
Don't worry about Russia, the US will take care of that. The US missiles are getting ready to take aim at them, its only tradition bitchez
5 proven economic and strategic global powerhouses are buying it (none of which mine gold themselve, of course), while the idiot of europe is selling. BUY!
yeah, we get it. ZH wants us to buy gold. how about a real reason.
STRAIGHT FROM FORT KNOX BABY!!!!!!!
IN 100 MILLS WE BELIEVE!!!!!!
just don't scratch it....
Ha, And, as the audit team opened the creaky door and peel back the cobwebs all that was in the room was a note on a table that says:
"So long and thanks for all the fish"... suckers Richard Nixon
Ever wonder why when France wanted payment of a mere 4-5 billion in gold, Nixon rather drastically took us completely off the gold standard? Ole Tricky Dicky, Things that make you go Humm............
Actually that would be Johnson...
The Germany sale was to thier mint..to make coins because of the high demand by the way...
They know this just ignore it because it helps to confuse the sheep.
Of course the cartel know how many counterfeit futures contract they need to sell to send the prices of gold and silver down as they go down again today.
Do the Russkies know what Buffet said,"you can't eat gold?"
In an emergency you could probably swallow quite a few 1/10 ounces...It would work kind of like nibblet corn.
Plus it hasn't gone parabolic yet and everybody knows that's the best reason to own something.
Plus it hasn't reached the high from 30 yrs ago yet when xyz is taken into account and evrybody knows it has to reach that old high again because um because um well I forget but it makes sense when you think about it, kind of.
Of all central banks, who do you think the smartest?
And the Bundesbank didn't buy, and in fact sold (albeit small) in the most profitable way possible (little pieces to retail).
Have they bought at all in the last couple of years?
Do you know what you are asking? It's like naming the best one legged man at a butt kicking contest.
Didn't Wikileaks release a US report that China was preparing a gold backed Yuan to displace the USD as the reserve currency? That would surely do the trick without a shot. Then, all China need do is repossess on their "loans" and they could own a large chunk of the US.
Upside? People don't usually nuke their colonies.
Chuck,
I have thought about this as well, I am unable to guage the interest in supporting a world reserve currency from a communist government. Seems like there would be some questions about free markets and stuff....
. . . because the markets are so free now? the naming of things is controlled by the power-mongers, doublespeak abounds.
The Chinese now have the option of holding their saving in gold. This a remonitization of the metal at least in a reserve sense even though it doesn't currently circulate