Germany wants its gold back.

[Fly320s]

Summary: The German central bank, Bundesbanke, is physically moving its gold reserves from the US Fed bank and the French Fed bank back to Germany.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-14/it-begins-bundesbank-commence-repatriating-gold-new-york-fed

Can any of you more financially literate people elaborate on this? 

[AZRedhawk44]

I'm guessing this is an international response to our failure to audit the Fed's holdings.

[Viking]

Imagine this for a second - what if the gold isn't there anymore?

[Lee]

Maybe they've heard about some future base closures. We've been sending our gold over there for a half century.

[RocketMan]

The US.gov finally goes into the financial crapper.  Nothing more to lose at that point.  Might they start confiscating bullion holdings?

[brimic]

Imagine this for a second - what if the gold isn't there anymore?

We don't have to imagine very hard for that to be a reality.

[RevDisk]

The US.gov finally goes into the financial crapper.  Nothing more to lose at that point.  Might they start confiscating bullion holdings?

Na. It isn't that much in value compared to our financial issues. And it would cause a lot of problems

[makattak]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/01/15/uk-germany-gdp-idUKBRE90E09R20130115?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

I'm not sure why I'm linking the fact that Germany's economy just contracted. I'm sure it's purely coincidental.

[Fly320s]

Na. It isn't that much in value compared to our financial issues. And it would cause a lot of problems

3,396 tons.

3,396 * 2000 (I assume) * 14.583 Troy ounces in a pound * $1,681/oz.

$166,499,244,216.  $166.5 billion give or take.

[Balog]

$166 billion is what, couple weeks worth of spending for the fed.gov?

[lupinus]

$166 billion is what, couple weeks worth of spending for the fed.gov?

And that's if we eat in every night and suspend family game night snacks.

[Blakenzy]

Paper holdings are turning to ****.

Current fiat money and banking debt system is at the end of it's rope. Those who hold the precious metals at the end will be kings.

My preciousssss...

[makattak]

$166 billion is what, couple weeks worth of spending for the fed.gov?

I tried to give the answer off the top of my head, but the math was off. SOOO, having looked it up, our Federal government spends just over $10 Billion a day. So, yes, 16 days of spending. (and, as we are borrowing 40% of everything we spend, that's also about 40 days of borrowing.)

[birdman]

That's Germany's, I think the US is like 7700 tons.

In terms of personal ownership, lets say if they repeated what happened in the 30's (but this time, include non-bullion like set a limit on jewelry) lets say the -average- American owns 2oz of gold (adjusted for quality) and they set the limit at 1oz (ie, wedding/engagement/etc rings), and confiscate 1oz from everyone.  That's 300million Troy, or about 10,000 tons.

Add in the bullion, and its 510 million Troy oz, or about 750 billion. 

[HankB]

In terms of personal ownership, lets say if they repeated what happened in the 30's (but this time, include non-bullion like set a limit on jewelry)  . . .

I believe compliance today would be a fraction of what it was in the 1930s.

[makattak]

That's Germany's, I think the US is like 7700 tons.

In terms of personal ownership, lets say if they repeated what happened in the 30's (but this time, include non-bullion like set a limit on jewelry) lets say the -average- American owns 2oz of gold (adjusted for quality) and they set the limit at 1oz (ie, wedding/engagement/etc rings), and confiscate 1oz from everyone.  That's 300million Troy, or about 10,000 tons.

Add in the bullion, and its 510 million Troy oz, or about 750 billion. 

WOW! Why, we'd have enough to cover the borrowing for almost 3/4 of one year!

[longeyes]

No honest citizen needs to own more than ten ounces of gold.  :)

[RocketMan]

If .gov goes into the financial crapper, then some banks won't be far behind.  I guess I wouldn't want any of my precious metal stocks held by a bank with a mushy foundation.

[Scout26]

I read about this in Der Speigel a couple of months back.  Let me see if I can find it.

Here we go. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-politicians-demand-to-see-gold-in-us-federal-reserve-a-864068.html


IIRC, One of the things that was in the German edition was that they suspected (or discovered) was that at least one of the gold bars that was weighed turned out to weigh as much as a bar of lead/zinc/tungsten and not gold. 

Not sure where that came from, but I do remember reading it somewhere (in German.)

[birdman]

I read about this in Der Speigel a couple of months back.  Let me see if I can find it.

Here we go. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-politicians-demand-to-see-gold-in-us-federal-reserve-a-864068.html


IIRC, One of the things that was in the German edition was that they suspected (or discovered) was that at least one of the gold bars that was weighed turned out to weigh as much as a bar of lead/zinc/tungsten and not gold. 

Not sure where that came from, but I do remember reading it somewhere (in German.)

Odd, the US has double the gold, but five times the GDP. 

US deficit (annual) is about 8% of GDP, German is <1%.

In other words, the Germans could finance several YEARS worth of their deficit with gold, while we would be able to finance less than a month.  Sad.

[red headed stranger]

I believe compliance today would be a fraction of what it was in the 1930s.

And I think we could get the Hip-Hop community on our side.    

[Jim147]

And I think we could get the Hip-Hop community on our side.    

You can have my teeth when you pry them from my cold dead mouth.

jim

[Balog]

Odd, the US has double the gold, but five times the GDP. 

US deficit (annual) is about 8% of GDP, German is <1%.

In other words, the Germans could finance several YEARS worth of their deficit with gold, while we would be able to finance less than a month.  Sad.

Assuming the mass liquidation of gold didn't depress the value.

[birdman]

Assuming the mass liquidation of gold didn't depress the value.

It wouldn't have to be massive in their case, 100 tons a month wouldn't move it much.  In our case, it would likely depress the price quickly, though, likely not any more than 10-20% as other central banks (ie china) would easily be willing to trade dollars for gold at even a moderate discount.  Hell, they could sell treasuries for dollars, and buy gold, which wouldn't affect the yuan at all, and totally screw the dollar.

[Waitone]

Here of late there has been a spat of nations demanding delivery of gold they have on account.  Used to be gold was moved amongst the various vaults controlled by the FED or various banks beholding to the FED.  The Chinese went on a gold buying binge and then announced it would be taking delivery of its gold and place it in vaults they were building in Hong Kong (IIRC).  Normally those taking delivery would simply place the bullion in its existing form in their vaults.  The Chinese went one step further to melt down and recast their bullion.  In essence the Chinese are conducting a 100% physical audit of its gold. . . . which suggests salted gold bullion is worse of a problem than is generally thought.