German Court Demands Bundesbank Audit Sovereign Gold Holdings

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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-...ands-bundesbank-audit-sovereign-gold-holdings

German Court Demands Bundesbank Audit Sovereign Gold Holdings


The German court of auditors (Bundesrechnungshof) has demanded that the Bundesbank undertake an audit of its gold reserves. In an 'audit-the-fed' style effort, the court wants to ensure that the nearly 3400 tons of gold is in fact in existence - 'because stocks have never been checked for authenticity and weight'. Furthermore, the Bundesbank's gold is stored in three other vaults around the world: The Bank of England, The Bank of France, and the US Federal Reserve. The court questions the practice of relying on a written confirmation from the custodians (foreign central banks). The decision means negotiating with the three foreign central banks for physical verification but in anticipation, the Bundesbank has begun the process of shipping 50 tons per year from the Fed back to Germany for the next three years.

Germany's apparent (unchecked and unverified) gold holdings are second only to the USA's (just as unaudited levels)...

World%20Gold%20Holdings%20October_0.jpg


Via Spiegel:

Germany has the second largest gold reserves in the world, nearly 3400 tons. Supposedly, anyway. Because stocks have never been checked for authenticity and weight. Now, the Federal Court has asked the Bundesbank to examine the gold reserves abroad regularly.



The German central bank gold is safely stored in vaults in Frankfurt, New York, Paris and London. Checked really but apparently no one. The Federal Court has the Bundesbank now anyway required regular inspection and inventory of the vast gold reserves abroad. The auditors explain this in a report on Monday has become known to the budget committee of the Bundestag with the "high value of gold holdings."



The samples stored at other German banks stocks were also never by the Bundesbank itself or by other independent auditors "added physically and for authenticity and weight" checked. Actually talk on the subject numerous theories - so should the U.S. gold reserves at Fort Knox have long been looted.



The Bundesbank has on the USA's second largest gold reserves in the world. End of 2011 there were 3396 tons, worth 133 billion euros. After the soaring price of gold is likely to reach about 142 billion euros currently even. Secures the gold bars by the Bundesbank in own vaults in Frankfurt as well as at three bearing points abroad: The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in New York, Bank of France in Paris and the Bank of England in London.



Bundesbank gets tons of gold from New York



The Court had determined the order of the Bundestag that the Federal Bank reviews its overseas gold reserves stored exactly. It is disputed whether the Bundesbank experienced for years practice sufficient to rely only on a written confirmation to the gold bars by the foreign central banks.



The Court recommends that the Bundesbank to negotiate with the three foreign central banks the right to physical verification of stocks. With the implementation of this recommendation, the Bundesbank has begun according to the report. They also decided to bring in the next three years to 50 tons each of the past at the Fed in New York gold to Germany to get it here to undergo a thorough examination. In the report, several points are blackened. In effect, the paper is not clear exactly how much gold is in which foreign central bank.



The information held in the Federal Bank headquarters holdings consist of 82,857 according to the report bullion stored mostly in sealed containers with 50 bars, which are kept in four separate locked safe boxes. Part of it (6183 bar) stored on open shelves, therefore in a separate vault - the so-called gold chamber. To secure the gold it says in the report: "The vault closure is double, the inner seals and the gold chamber under a triple lock."
 
Why bother? You can't eat it! /sarc
 
3400 ton reserves. They want to start "50t/year" exports. Let's say they have 1/3 of their reserves in Fed's NY vault, say 1000t (I think they have majority of their stack there, but just for the sake of argument). It would only take them 20 years to ship it home

Well good luck with that!

:rotflmbo:
 
3400 ton reserves. They want to start "50t/year" exports. Let's say they have 1/3 of their reserves in Fed's NY vault, say 1000t (I think they have majority of their stack there, but just for the sake of argument). It would only take them 20 years to ship it home

Well good luck with that!

:rotflmbo:
It's pretty clear that they've cut a deal with the FED not to withdraw more.
That in itself is very disturbing because such deals wouldn't be necessary if all the gold was truely there and/or not leased out :paperbag:
 
...the effect being - more and more peoples & institutions in Germany "want it to happen", which I presume will be the ONLY effect :rotflmbo:
 
By the way, this is not a court (the "Bundesrechnungshof") in the technical sense of the word. ZH got that wrong. It's an accountability institution that gives recomendations for branches of government on how to deal with taxpayer assets in a responsible fashion. So it's more like the GAO ( http://www.gao.gov/ ) in the US.
 
...well the funny thing is, even if the gold is sold, let alone "leased out", it doesn't necessarily need to leave the vault, physically - quite often it doesn't, from what I've learned. It is supposed to be one of gold's strengths in investment/monetary realms - it's main purpose is to exist, and since it is "good delivery", well, it is enough to change the claim of ownership (until someone indeed redeems it physically - which doesn't happened too often with these particular lots of CB-owned gold, I think).

So it would be not enough, to audit the vaults, without auditing the books, and maybe even cross-auditing them with the books of bullion banks, COMEXes and so forth - even if the gold might still be there in Fed's vaults, but there could be (and most probably, there IS) more than one claim on every piece there exist.


Go physical, and :popcorn:
 
Go physical, and :popcorn:

It's still good to have money in the system in form of physical certs of the miners.. maybe i'm crazy but I still see value in a lot of those companies and believe they will get crazy price action when gold goes into it's mania phase.
 
well definitely, the only problem is, I don't know a :doodoo: about miners stocks (although squirreling away little bits of information from more experienced guys, here, there and everywhere :))! And my coins cannot (physically) go bankrupt.

But I totally agree with your points on miners stocks - have seen some (contrarian) reports, that demonstrate how very much hated gold companies currently are.
 
I've just read the full report about the German gold reserves and it's quite an eye opener. It's posted here (in German): http://www.gata.org/files/GermanGoldAuditorsReport-10-22-2012.pdf

Lots of parts of the report have been censored for the public, but here are
Some of the highlights:

p. 13 of the pdf (paraphrasing): doubting that the gold in foreign central bank vault is actually there, would have "massive political implications" according to the Bundesbank.

p. 13-15: The NY FED "stores" foreign gold "gratis", but excludes ANY responsibility for losses of the gold. Bundesbank representatives were NOT allowed to enter the vault where Germany's gold is supposedly stored. They only could visit the entrance area of the vault :doodoo: .

p. 24: Under the title "preview" a whole section is censored. One can deduct from the following sentence that it has to do with an agreement between the FED and the Bundesbank about German gold which is stored in NY. Something is fishy there :snidely:

p. 33: Of course the Bundesbank suggested that the report should be classified and kept from the German public :doodoo:
 
@ swissaustrian

THAT is too bad, that they will keep any of their audit results a secret. I for one would like to know if our Fed cheats the Germans or anybody else. Would the gold bars the Fed ships back to Germany be the same ones the Germans originally sent the Fed? Inquiring minds want to know!

All this secrecy..., makes me want more physical!
 
AEP said:
Germany withdrew two thirds of its vast holdings of gold from Bank of England vaults shortly after the launch of the euro more than a decade ago, according to a confidential report by German auditors.
...
The report also claimed that the Bundesbank had slashed its holdings in London from 1,440 tons to 500 tons in 2000 and 2001, allegedly because storage costs were too high. The metal was flown to Frankfurt by air freight.

The revelation has baffled gold veterans. The shift came as the euro was at its weakest, slumping to $0.84 against the dollar. But it also came as the Bank of England was selling off most of Britain's gold reserves – at market lows – on orders from Gordon Brown.

Peter Hambro, chair of the UK-listed gold miner Petropavlovsk, said the Bundesbank may have withdrawn its bullion in self-protection since it did not, apparently, have its own specifically allocated bars in London. "They may have decided that the Bank of England had lent out too much gold, and decided it was safer to bring theirs home. This is about the identification. Can you identify your own allocated gold, or are you just a general creditor with a metal account?"

The watchdog report follows claims by the German civic campaign group "Bring Back our Gold" and its US allies in the Gold Anti-Trust Committee that official data cannot be trusted. They allege central banks have loaned out or "sold short" much of their gold.

The refrain has been picked up by German legislators. "All the gold must come home: it is precisely in this crisis that we need certainty over our gold reserves," said Heinz-Peter Haustein from the Free Democrats (FDP).
...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...hed-London-gold-holdings-in-mystery-move.html
 
The report also claimed that the Bundesbank had slashed its holdings in London from 1,440 tons to 500 tons in 2000 and 2001, allegedly because storage costs were too high.
The BOE is the only central bank which charges ANY storage fees according to the report. Neither the FED nor the BDF (Banque de France) charge fees. Additionally, the report doesn't say that they flew the whole gold to Frankfurt.
Seems to me like this is a typical case of bad translation.

I guess the Bundesbank rather leased out a large chunk of the gold at the BOE and got it back later at the NY FED's vault in form of different bars. That makes much more sense :snidely:
They claim that they have no lease agreements outstanding today, but that might just be due to triangular agreements involving other central banks or international institutions like the BIS. One can easily hide a lease behind a swap with another central bank or international institution.
E.g.: the Bundesbank and the NY FED swap 1000 standard bars (400oz each) for 1 years. The BB gets 1000 bars for one year and does nothing with them. The NY FED then leases the 1000 BB bars out for 1 year to a third party (usually a bullion bank) on behalf of the BB. After that the NY FED pays the BB a swap "fee" which in fact is the lease rate that the NY FED collected from the third party minus a small profit for the NY FED. This way the BB can claim that they don't lease any gold as of today because they're hiding it behind swap agreements with other entitities.
 
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James Turk believes that Bundesbank has effectively lost (most of) Germanys gold through gold swaps, just as I said above... :D

Today James Turk shocked King World News when he stated, “The entire German gold hoard was gone because it had been leased into the marketplace. Meaning, the vaults holding German gold were emptied by 2001 because of the Bundesbank leasing activities.”

Turk added, “Half of the gold they (the Germans) leased themselves. The other half of Germany’s gold hoard was eventually leased into the market as well through complicated swaps with the US. But the reality is that as of 2001, all of that German gold was gone. Meaning all German gold worldwide, which was supposed to be stored in vaults, the vaults were emptied of German gold and the gold was leased into the market.”

Turk went on to say, “It’s uncertain if any of that leased gold has ever been returned to those vaults. Meaning, the vaults which are supposed to be storing the German gold hoard may still be empty.”

Incredibly, 11 years ago James Turk had diagnosed the problems of the missing German gold hoard. Here is the 2001 piece titled, “Behind Closed Doors” in which he exposed the German gold was in fact missing:

...

From the FOMC transcripts it is quite apparent that Ted Truman has a special role. Though recorded in the attendee list in the FOMC transcripts under the featureless title of "economist", his role is anything but ordinary. The transcripts reveal that he clearly speaks for the Treasury Department in FOMC meetings, and is very knowledgeable about the ESF. The insight displayed by him in the FOMC minutes makes it clear that he is not just fully informed about the ESF and its operations, but that he probably is also intimately involved in ESF decision making. Consequently, the following excerpt is particularly intriguing.

MR. PARRY. What is the size of the ESF?
MR. TRUMAN. The usable funds in the ESF today, counting the foreign exchange as usable, amount to roughly $25 billion.
MR. PARRY. Can you say how it is broken down?
MR. TRUMAN. About $5 billion is invested in Treasury securities and the balance is roughly equally divided between marks and yen. I think they have slightly more yen than marks. MR. PARRY. Thank you.
MR. BOEHNE. Is any of it obligated in any way beyond what we are talking about with Mexico?
MR. TRUMAN. It is obligated only in the sense that they have one other swap arrangement with the Bundesbank.

Wouldn't it be interesting to know what this swap arrangement with the Bundesbank entailed? What is the nature of this swap? Is it a Dollar/Deutschemark swap facility? Or is something else being swapped, like gold perhaps?

Gold being swapped with the Bundesbank? It's an outrageous thought. Or is it? I have already established that the ESF is very much involved with gold. The only thing I haven't established is with whom the ESF has those gold swaps that Virgil Mattingly was talking about.

Let's put one and one together here to see if we can come up with an answer. According to Virgil Mattingly, the ESF has authorized gold swaps, presumably in the recent past (circa 1995). According to Ted Truman, the only outstanding swap facility of the ESF (circa 1995) other than the one established for Mexico is their facility with the Bundesbank. Ergo, the ESF has a gold swap facility with the Bundesbank.

...

I've already put one-and-one together to establish that the ESF has "gold swaps" with the Bundesbank. It therefore does not require much conjecture to add one supposition to the equation by concluding that the gold in West Point has been swapped with gold owned by the Bundesbank, thereby necessitating its reclassification from "Gold Bullion Reserve" to "Custodial Gold". Here's what I think has happened.

The Treasury Department wanted to make gold available to some bullion banks. This statement is based on my basic premise that several of the big banks have gold books that are hopelessly imbalanced. By having borrowed short and loaned long, these banks have in their quest for profits imprudently fallen into the alluring but usually fatal banker's deathtrap – a mismatched loan book. But what's worse for these banks, it is even more difficult and treacherous to try extricating themselves from this particular deathtrap because they haven't mismatched their loan book of dollars, which we all know can be created by the Federal Reserve 'out of thin air' if dollars are needed to bailout banks from a deathtrap predicament. Instead, these banks have mismatched their gold book. And no one – not even the Federal Reserve – can create gold out of thin air.

So given this reality about the nature of gold, the Treasury had to turn elsewhere to find the gold necessary (1) to keep these banks from defaulting on their bullion obligations arising from their mismatched gold books in an environment where metal had become increasingly difficult to come by and/or (2) to keep the gold price low so that the likelihood of default by the banks would be lessened, even though metal would remain tight because fabrication year after year was exceeding newly mined supply. Rather than accept the bitter pill that certain banks were about to default on their bullion obligations, the Treasury looked for alternatives and found one – they put their hand into the till, until recently known as the Gold Bullion Reserve at West Point. They swapped this gold with the Bundesbank. I'll explain how they did it, but let's first consider the practical aspects of this transaction.

In all likelihood, these particular bullion banks needed gold in Europe where their obligations were originally established. There is very little gold lending in New York. It is a practical problem to ship the gold out of West Point without raising the alarm of government auditors. It is costly too. Also, it is likely that some of the gold in West Point is coin-melt from the 1933 gold confiscation. Even if it could be smuggled out of the West Point vault into the market without raising suspicions, the alarm bells would go off at the refiner and soon thereafter in the market because everyone knows that only the US government has coin-melt bars. The appearance of coin-melt bars in the market would immediately raise suspicions that the US Gold Reserve was being dishoarded, an outcome that the Treasury would obviously take steps to avoid in concocting its scheme because the US Gold Reserve cannot be depleted without Congressional approval. Therefore, one is faced with the practical considerations of overcoming these hurdles, but the answer is relatively simple.

The Treasury has gold in West Point. The Bundesbank has gold in Europe. The Treasury cannot directly do a deal with the Bundesbank because unlike the ESF, the Treasury is subject to Congressional oversight. So instead the Secretary of the Treasury and the President decide to use the ESF to set up a swap line for gold with the Bundesbank.

By so doing, the gold in the Bundesbank's vault in Europe becomes ESF gold, to do with as they please – i.e., the ESF lends this metal to bailout certain bullion banks. And the Bundesbank now owns the gold in West Point, which as a result was purposefully re-classified from Gold Bullion Reserve to Custodial Gold because the Treasury no longer owns this gold, having swapped it out through the ESF in exchange for gold in Europe owned by the Bundesbank. Case closed. The mystery of the abnormally low gold price is solved. The ESF did it.

The abnormally low gold price is the result of the mounting irrefutable evidence that the ESF is deeply involved in the gold market, and I do mean deep. They are involved in some 1,700 tonnes worth because that is the weight of gold stored in West Point, which was probably being swapped at the rate of a few hundred tonnes per year from circa 1995 through 2000. There are two other tidbits that I would like to share with you that add even more validity to this supposition.

First, a couple of months ago I was analyzing the 1998 and 1999 balance sheets of the ESF. Being an ex-banker, I know a little bit about accounting, including where to find the big holes through which the proverbial truck can be driven. And suffice it to say, I found one of those, which could suggest that in these two years 975 tonnes of gold came into the market from the ESF. Interestingly, after reaching this conclusion, I wanted to test it. So I called a top gold market expert whose supply/demand analyses are second to none, and who believes that gold from the US reserves has been coming into the market for several years.

Without telling him about my analysis of the ESF balance sheet, I asked him how much gold he thought came out of the Treasury/ESF in 1998 and 1999 in total. His response was 1,000 tonnes, a mere 25 tonnes difference from what I deduced from the ESF financial statements. When I told him this, that we had both reached the same conclusion from different sources, he chuckled but was not in the least bit surprised, being so convinced that the Treasury/ESF has been a major source of metal for years. I have thoroughly reviewed his supply/demand numbers since 1994 and have determined that as much as 2,000 tonnes of gold from the US reserve may have entered the market in order to make the gold price as low as it is, which leads me to the second tidbit that I would like to share with you. It is just as intriguing.

This same individual told me several months ago about some astonishing intelligence he had learned from a source in Europe. He told me that the Bundesbank's gold vault was empty, which seemed so preposterous that I found it hard to believe. He also admitted that this news startled him when he learned about it, and that he did not have an adequate explanation for it. He knew that the Bundesbank was an active lender of gold, but he had a difficult time accepting the possibility that all 3,400 tonnes that it owned had been loaned. Yet he was confident that his source had provided him with accurate information.

We now know what has happened. The Bundesbank has loaned 1,700 tonnes, one-half of its 3,400 tonnes reserve; the other 1,700 tonnes were swapped for gold in the US reserves, requiring the change in the West Point vault from Gold Bullion Reserve to Custodial Gold. In other words, the Bundesbank's vault is empty because one-half of their gold is stored in West Point not Europe, and the other half has been loaned out.

Despite the irrefutable proof that the ESF is involved in the gold market, two questions remain unanswered. First, what's the ESF's motive? Unfortunately, we just don't know for certain.

Many, including me, claim that it is to use gold to provide the liquidity needed to bailout some big banks that have imprudently grown their gold books by recklessly expanding credit and mismatching their asset/liability maturities. These banks are the ones with the unusual – some say abnormal – derivative activities that are named as co-defendants in Reg Howe's suit against the BIS. That this list includes Germany's largest bank may explain why the Bundesbank would agree to participate in this gold swap scheme. It was bailing out one of its own.

...

In conclusion, while we don't know whether any of these motives for manipulating the gold price that I ascribed to the US government are accurate, one point is clear and cannot be denied. The US government cannot claim that the ESF is not involved with gold. We now have the irrefutable proof that establishes beyond any reasonable doubt that the ESF is indeed involved in the gold market. We know this for a fact because of our peek behind closed doors.

KWN will follow up with Turk at the beginning of next week for more coverage on this unbelievable situation.
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldn...k_-_The_Entire_German_Gold_Hoard_Is_Gone.html
 
...all this talk about leased-out gold. My question goes like this:

1. No doubts, that it is double accounting, magically doubling the amount of gold being leased out (as I understand it - both CB keeps it on the books, and the leasing-out bank suddenly has it on THEIR books)
2. 0.99999999999(9) chance, that this scam is happening for a good while.
3. Depending on the "borrower" of that leased gold, it might, but more probably it DOES NOT LEAVE the original vault (say NY Fed's). That, from what I've learned, is rather a standard practice. Gold is rarely physically moved, unless there's a real business need for it. It rather gets allocated, or maybe even not that.
4. So, what we end up with, ni case of event, that more than one party shows up with the ownership claim? Who's gonna prevail, who's going to find himself on the receiving end of the stick?

5. All that said, I bet my money that "possession is 9/10th of ownership" - so I'd say, that all the gold "borrowers", in case of financial/Au SHTF, and all others who did not took possession in time (poor German bastards, the WW2 war reparations have finally caught up with them :)), are being taken for a ride. When scandal erupts, well, scandal will be there anyway, and the ones with greater powers (physical ownership), will just cut their loses, and tell others "screw you" (no doubts in some other, nicer wording). And those who will get raped - well, I hope they have a big fecking jar of Vaseline at their disposal, because they are going to get it so deeply up their arses, they might actually see the end of it sticking out of their mouth.

My opinion, based solely on the fact (?), that lending gold out doesn't necessarily mean, that gold has left it's original storage place - more likely it did not.
 
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that's my point. First , in this case, is the one, who keeps the gold (physically), and have means to keep it (US Army)

They are, after all, not that much different from the preppers, these CBs - "come and take your gold, Dzermany :pffftt:"
 
I think it was a brilliant move for Germany to start repatriating just 50 tons/year. It's a small enough amount not to give rise to any credible objections from the custodians. It's large enough to start making a dent in the stack. The only real question is - will there be enough time to siphon it all home before the game ends? I expect Germany may increase the amount they repatriate down the road if they think they can get away with it.
 
....actually, great point PMBug. I am sure they are trying to do this as fast as possible, without rising too much suspicions, and unleashing the panic "gold rush".


...just another indicator that this here lot is on the right track :wave:
 
that's my point. First , in this case, is the one, who keeps the gold (physically), and have means to keep it (US Army)

They are, after all, not that much different from the preppers, these CBs - "come and take your gold, Dzermany :pffftt:"

That's what Jim Rickards has said in his book "currency wars". The US owns 8000+ tons, but it possesses 15000+. If tshtf, all these countries who are storing their gold in the US are effd.

DeGaulle knew this in 1965:
 
Great thread and comments!

I too wonder if Germany will/would release results of any testing done on their gold. Are they (would they be) the original bars Germany earlier sent? Or newer 2012 Engelhards? Hmm...

For me, almost ANYTIME ANY questions like this come up, it always points me back to the same thought as always: Buy gold while you can and while it is cheap!

Be your own central bank!

:gold:

:gold:

:gold:
 
Well, maybe 50tons/year was too much after all... Bundesbank feeling pressure?
... the fact that Germany did this has opened a Pandora's box of unanswered questions, and even demands that Germany promptly demand delivery all of its gold - the second largest such hoard in the world only after the US - held abroad. Below is the official response by the Bundesbank.

Here is the gist::
We do not have the slightest doubt that our holdings in New York and Paris are also made up of the purest fine gold. We have at our disposal fully documented lists of the bars, and our partner central banks send us every year confirmation not only of the bars’ existence but also of their quality.

We had nothing but the best of experiences with our partners in New York, London and Paris. There was never any doubt about the security of Germany’s gold. In future, we wish to continue to keep gold at international gold trading centres so that, when push comes to shove, we can have it available as a reserve asset as soon as possible. Gold stored in your home safe is not immediately available as collateral in case you need foreign currency.

How about if you need collateral in your own currency, such as the de facto reserve currency of Europe, the DEM? Crickets?

The punchline:
Take, for instance, the key role that the US dollar plays as a reserve currency in the global financial system. The gold held with the New York Fed can, in a crisis, be pledged with the Federal Reserve Bank as collateral against US dollar-denominated liquidity. Similar pound sterling liquidity could be obtained by pledging the gold that is held with the Bank of England.

And what otherwise would pass as Saturday Humor:
But, please: for years, our gold has been stored by the highly esteemed central banks of the United States, Great Britain and France without provoking any complaints whatsoever – not by just any fly-by-night operators. Part of the debate in Germany has veered somewhat towards the absurd.

In other words, German gold is being held hostage by the "highly esteemed central banks" of the US and the UK, due to the reserve currency status of the US Dollar, and apparently the British Pound. And the only way a central bank - read the Fed or the BOE - can extend a loan against gold-based collateral, is if said gold is already on location in the US or the UK.
...

More: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-27/bundesbanks-official-statment-where-its-gold-and-isnt
 
The Doc @ SilverDoctors had an interesting interview with Ned Naylor-Leyland:
...
You have to bear in mind that any physical which is removed from the fractionally backed system effectively unwinds leverage, so really the 50 ton annual number is much larger in terms of the impact on the underlying market.
...
With gold repatriation initiatives in Venezuela, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and now Romania, The Doc asked how Naylor-Leyland sees this playing out going forward & whether the Fed and the Bank of England are in trouble:

Well I don’t think there’s any doubt that this is going to spread. The issue is will it be visible? I think it’s been spreading ever since Chavez repatriated Venezuela’s gold. Despite the tinge of comedy with which it was presented, which seems to always be the case with the Western media, I’m sure that wasn’t the case among some central bankers that weren’t particularly up to speed on the subject. I’m sure Chavez got their attention. I don’t think that they realistically can expect a positive solution out of it. In other words, no one can really expect to be able to call up their counter-party and say I want either a full exhaustive audit or a full delivery immediately. I don’t think either of those two things are in play, so the issue is simply whether this subject can evolve from it’s current status to become a large subject in the mainstream. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard touched on the subject last week in the Telegraph which was a surprise to me because gold is not a subject he likes to write about very often.

It’s going to be happening in the background. The subject is now alive and will become more and more important. Whether or not its taboo and too sensitive to discuss among the mainstream media is a different question and a difficult one for me to answer.

In terms of where is it going to go from here, the pressure is going to continue to ratchet up, the importance of this subject will continue to grow, and as you and I well know, with an accelerating price point behind it, it will become that much more relevant to the conversation.

More: http://www.silverdoctors.com/ned-na...have-no-chance-of-getting-out-with-any-metal/
 
... a member of the executive board of the German Bundesbank, Andreas Dombret, at a reception held at the Bundesbank's office in New York in the presence of the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley. Dombret's remarks, appended here, confirm that, as GATA often has reported, Germany's gold reserves are held in large part at the New York Fed to facilitate their presumably secret trading, since, as Dombret notes, "Frankfurt is not a gold-trading center."
...

More: http://gata.org/node/11898
 
... Zero Hedge travelled (metaphorically) in space - to London, or specifically the Bank of England Archives - and in time, to May 1968 to be precise.

While there we dug up a certain memo, coded C43/323 in the BOE archives, official title "GOLD AND FOREIGN EXCHANGE OFFICE FILE: FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF NEW YORK (FRBNY) - MISCELLANEOUS", dated May 31, 1968, written by a certain Mr. Robeson addressed to the BOE's Roy Bridge as well as its Chief Cashier, and whose ultimate recipient is Charles Coombs who at the time was the manager of the open market account at the Fed, responsible for Fed operations in the gold and FX markets.

This memo, more than any of the other spurious and speculative accusation about Buba's golden hoard, should disturb German citizens, and of course the Bundesbank (assuming it was not already aware of its contents), as the memo lays out, without any shadow of doubt, that the BOE and the Fed, effectively conspired to feed the Bundesbank due gold bars that were of substantially subpar quality on at least one occasion in the period during the Bretton-Woods semi-gold standard (which ended with Nixon in August 1971).

The facts:

At least two central banks have conspired on at least one occasion to provide the Bundesbank with what both banks knew was "bad delivery" gold - the convertible reserve currency under the Bretton Woods system, or in other words, to defraud - amounting to 172 bars. The "bad delivery" occured even as official gold refiners had warned that the quality of gold emanating from the US Assay Office was consistently below standard, and which both the BOE and the Fed were aware of. Instead of addressing the issue of declining gold quality and purity, the banks merely covered up the refiners' complaints.
...

More: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-...-ytd-total-surpasses-official-indian-holdings
 
Germany's clamor and agitation about the integrity of national gold reserves are spreading into Austria, where two national newspapers headquartered in Vienna, Die Presse and Der Standard, this week raised questions about Austria's national gold and even prompted a response from the country's central bank, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB).
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Der Standard also has published what appears to be a report on the issue by the Austria Press Agency, the country's independent press association, which GATA consultant Dimitri Speck has translated into English and is appended. The APA report is notable for its inducing the OeNB to disclose details about its gold leasing, supposedly now down to 16 percent of the Austrian gold reserve, and for recognizing that a fractional-reserve gold banking system may jeopardize the return of leased gold.
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More: http://gata.org/node/11957

If the report is to be believed, Austria has "un-leased" 64% of their gold reserves over the last decade.
 
Hilarious Keiser Report on the Austrian gold story (and more):

 
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