There's no gold in Fort Knox!

redwing

redwing

There's some interesting conspiracy theories about, some here you may, or may not have heard of

There's no gold in Fort Knox!

Origin: There have been only three visits to Fort Knox's gold depository since its creation in 1935. The length between the visits sparked a conspiracy theory that the gold was not there. Ron Paul recently attempted to pass a bill to have the vaults audited. Some people think that the bars have been drilled out and replaced with tungsten.
Also popular among the aforementioned people who think there's a conspiracy to suppress gold prices.

The reality: In the first visit to the depository since a Congressional delegation went in 1976, Treasury Inspector General Eric Thorson had the lock to the vault opened in front of him and went inside. He emerged fully convinced of the gold's presence, and the absolute security of the vault. He testified in front of Congress to that effect. If you're still not convinced, the Treasury will announce the results of an audit of the gold held at the New York Fed, in which they drilled into the bars to test purity.
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Source
 
The Rothschild's control governments and the banking system.

I'd heard this one..

Origin: The Rothschilds are a powerful banking family, who were particularly influential in the 19th century, with the English branch almost single handedly funding Britain's war against Napoleon. Some believe that the family continues to influence global affairs and the banking system.

The reality: The primary public activity of the Rothschild family is philanthropy. The size of their enterprises is nothing near what it was in previous centuries, and there is no evidence that they secretively control governments. There are many branches of the family, not a singular monolith, and no family members even sit on the board of the largest remaining fund. The basis of the conspiracies is ignorance and anti-semitism.
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Source
 
The American Federal Reserve is a private corporation run for the profit of its share

I've seen some of the Money Masters


Origin: This one's been kicking around almost since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. It's the subject of a three hour documentary called "The Money Masters".

The reality: Nationally chartered banks do hold stock in their regional Federal Reserve Banks, and receive a small portion (6 percent of their stock) of the profits of their regional banks, which is presumably the origin of this theory.

* That stock confers no control over the Regional bank's activities.
* Last year $1.6 billion in profit went to member banks. The remaining $46 billion was remanded to the Treasury department.

Further, monetary policy is conducted by two entirely different branches of the Federal Reserve System. The Board Of Governors oversees the Regional banks and monetary policy, and is made up of 7 members nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. They conduct monetary policy in the interest of the public by their Congressional mandate.

The closest influence the private shareholders have on the conduct of monetary policy is through their nomination of 6 of the 9 members of regional bank boards. Those boards nominate bank presidents, who must be confirmed by the Board of Governors. 5 regional presidents serve on the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee, which oversees the principal tool of monetary policy, in service of the Federal Reserve's Congressional mandate, not regional shareholders.
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Source
 
redwing said:
Some people think that the bars have been drilled out and replaced with tungsten.
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Wow, up until about 5 minutes ago, I was unaware that Tungsten and gold has such similiar densities.

Apparently there is a 0.36% difference....slim yes, but still a difference.

When you're talking about big gold bars in the vault, we're talking at least 99.99% pure gold, therefore one could use simpl weighing devices to determine whether the bar was solid gold or had been contaminated with tungsten.

In a big 100 oz bar, the density difference would be noticeable.

SG of Gold is 19.32
SG of Tungsten is slightly less at 19.25

Anyway, I learnt something today.
 
I have a large gold bar at work made from lead, when people ask if it's real.. I tell them golds heavier ;)

SG of Lead 11.34

Interesting and with the Olympics on, I heard that in drug testing the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) results for drug detection are compared against theresults og a gold standard
 
This was an interesting video on the Gold in Fort Knox and manipulation (with Colin Powell of GATA):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0jpso4jDC4

The main concern (of conspiracists who are not completely bonkers :D) is that the Gold is leased or no longer owned by the US, not that it's no longer physically there or replaced with tungsten filled bars. They are concerned about ownership and multiple claims to the same physical Gold.

Also popular among the aforementioned people who think there's a conspiracy to suppress gold prices.
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I'm fairly neutral on this subject.

There are old central banks documents (also mentioned in above clip or found on GATA's website) which show they have manipulated Gold trade and prices in the past, although some 40-50 years ago... is it still happening today? Possibly.

However, I think there are enough reasons to own Gold without getting caught up in the conspiracies about it.
 
This thread reminded of Peter Costello selling 167 tonnes of our gold reserve at $300 per ounce in 1997, it is now worth about $1500 per ounce and has been as high as $1900 per ounce.

This brilliant economic foresight cost Australia between $5 - $6 billion dollars.

Now there's something for the Liberal National supporters to complain about.
 
evand said:
This thread reminded of Peter Costello selling 167 tonnes of our gold reserve at $300 per ounce in 1997, it is now worth about $1500 per ounce and has been as high as $1900 per ounce.
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I have no interest in defending Costello, it was a fiscal blunder, but it wasn't quite as bad as you say. That quoted price was in $US and we were down around 50 - 60c US at the time.

Interesting that Gordon Brown did the same thing with B of E gold [but a smaller %age] at the same time. Did we both do it out of subservience to the US whose dollar was under severe pressure at the time? But that's another conspiracy theory. :D
 
He sold because he thought we didn't need gold and it was a bad investment. :rolleyes:



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...sale-cost-us-5bn/story-e6frg6nf-1225985231872



Sunfish said:
I have no interest in defending Costello, it was a fiscal blunder, but it wasn't quite as bad as you say. That quoted price was in $US and we were down around 50 - 60c US at the time.

Interesting that Gordon Brown did the same thing with B of E gold [but a smaller %age] at the same time. Did we both do it out of subservience to the US whose dollar was under severe pressure at the time? But that's another conspiracy theory. :D
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evand said:
This thread reminded of Peter Costello selling 167 tonnes of our gold reserve at $300 per ounce in 1997, it is now worth about $1500 per ounce and has been as high as $1900 per ounce.

This brilliant economic foresight cost Australia between $5 - $6 billion dollars.

Now there's something for the Liberal National supporters to complain about.
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...as usual, your arguments don't stack up to even the most simple of logic that every investor here on the forum can understand.

Labor and Keating left Australia in the lurch in 1996 with a veritable mountain of debt, $ 96 Billion, which was attracting payable interest of $ 8 Billion per year.

That's $ 8 Billion per year, every year, a permanent burden on the country until the Liberals did something about it.

One troy ounce is worth 31.103 grams.

Therefore, there is 32.15 troy ounces in 1 kg.

Therefore, 1 kg of gold is worth $ 9,645 at your stated $ 300 / ounce.

Therefore, 167 tonnes is worth $ 1.6 Billion.

Now, to most people. 167 tonnes of gold sounds like an awfully large amount, but it would only have paid the interest bill on Labor's debt for 73 days !!!

Of course, that says nothing about reducing the debt at all, simply holding the debt constant.

If Costello had of taken the entire $ 1.6 Billion proceeds from the sale of gold, and reduced the Labor debt by $ 1.6 Billion, over the course of the Howard Govt, he would of saved $ 133 million in interest payments every year, compounded of course until Labor decided to rack up debt again in 2007.

I'd say the move would be close to $ 3 billion in proceeds and saved interest for the Govt.

-----

If, like you are advocating, the Liberals had waited another 12 years continually paying foreign interest to foreign Banks on Labor's debt pile, they would have been better off.

Unfortunately, no-one in 1997 had a crystal ball that would predict gold prices would go thru the roof, and decisions were made at the time.


In any case, it really doesn't matter. After the Liberals successfully managed to pay off the debt and set the Australian economy up magnificently, the next Labor Govt came in and racked up an even bigger pile of debt, now at $ 145 Billion, yes, that's $ 145 Billion, and growing at $ 100 million every day.

Foreign interest paid to foreign banks is once again at $ 8.2 Billion per annum, and growing every day.....or $ 22 million per day in interest.

This time around however, Labor are compounding the interest instead of paying for it.....further driving the country into debt.

Even at $ 1,500 per ounce, the Australian Govt would need a stockpile of gold weighing 3,020 tonnes to pay off Labor's debt this time.

It's absolutely criminal what they have done to this country.
 
As always a total waste of irrelevant, meangless bandwidth, attempting to distract from the facts.

Buddhist saying: the truth needs very few words.

Fact: Costello sold 167 tonnes of gold at ridiculously low price and cost Australia between 5-6 billion dollars. That's all.
 
Today, there are gold bugs and there are those who scoff. Those who scoff have no right to complain about this sale because they say that gold has no value anyway, ergo sell and get something that can earn interest.

Never knew you were a bug, Evan.

ps I was buying at that time and have seen >300% cap gains since, so I guess I'm a bug.

pps What has labor done to correct the situation? If gold was a good investment they would be in the market, as China and Russia are.
 
Therefore, 1 kg of gold is worth $ 9,645 at your stated $ 300 / ounce.
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Dazz, I think you will find that was US$300 or A$600. I don't have either the actual price or the actual fx at the time though. Maybe it doesn't matter anyway because we would have paid off foreign debt at that same low exchange rate.

None of this is easy! :eek:
 
evand said:
Gold is valued in $US, no? So making it look better by pricing in $AU is just being disingenuous.
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Not so. The proceeds would have been immediately converted to A$s and repatriated, or used to cancel debts which show in our accounts as A$s so it would have been effectively sold in A$s.

Are you a gold bug? If the answer is "No" you have no grounds for complaint. Gold is an archaic relic with no place in the national accounts.

Edit: For a Keynesian to hold gold is simply speculation. I have never heard it said that Costello or Swann were good speculators. If the US still owns all it's gold then they are telling the world one thing while believing another. But that's a conspiracy again. LOL
 
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This is in the Pommy news:

Gordon Brown accused of cover-up over gold sale
Gordon Brown was last night accused of a “cover up” over the sale of Britain’s gold reserves after Treasury documents indicated that the Bank of England refused to support the sell-off.
By Holly Watt and Robert Winnett7:30AM BST 01 Apr 2010
An email released under Freedom of Information laws shows that in December 1998, senior Bank of England officials refused to support a Treasury proposal to sell almost 400 tonnes of Britain’s gold.
But hundreds of pages of documents which are thought to detail the Bank’s concerns and advice to the Chancellor have been withheld by the Treasury.
The Bank of England has been responsible for managing Britain’s reserves for centuries but it appears to have effectively been overruled by Mr Brown, when he was Chancellor.
The decision to sell the gold is one of the worst to have ever been taken by the Treasury and has cost the country about £7 billion as the price of bullion has since risen sharply.
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If I remember correctly Evan, Brown was LABOUR!
 
evand said:
As always a total waste of irrelevant, meangless bandwidth, attempting to distract from the facts.

Buddhist saying: the truth needs very few words.

Fact: Costello sold 167 tonnes of gold at ridiculously low price and cost Australia between 5-6 billion dollars. That's all.
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Rubbish. Labor left Australia with a massive debt and the Libs had to clean this up. That's all.
 
evand said:
As always a total waste of irrelevant, meangless bandwidth, attempting to distract from the facts.

Buddhist saying: the truth needs very few words.

Fact: Costello sold 167 tonnes of gold at ridiculously low price and cost Australia between 5-6 billion dollars. That's all.
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So how much gold did you buy at $300 an ounce, Mr. Psychic?
 
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