1953
72 years and counting.
That was a while ago.
That was the last time there was a full independent physical audit of the US gold reserves. There was a partial audit in 1974. Back in March, Trump and Musk were getting noisy about performing a full physical audit on the reserves to ensure that they were indeed all there....
Tumbleweed blows through.
.... more silence.
So, what happens if it is being overreported? And what happens if as many suspect, China, the largest buyer of gold, is actually underreporting their holdings? The audit Trump and Musk were calling for was to bring faith back to the sceptical public and increase confidence in US gold, yet for someone who loves gold so much, Trump doesn't seem to be very keen to do this now, does he? Perhaps he had a peek inside Fort Knox, and the cupboard was bare.
Gold is interesting though, as while it does have some unique characteristics that make it valuable as a material, it is largely only used as an expression of value, such as in jewellery, or as bullion. However, as a store of value (as it has been for many, many centuries), it is very, very impractical. It is hard to divide, it is difficult to transport and of course, walking around with a lump of gold opens a person up to all kinds of issues. Paying with gold is difficult.
Buying gold, well that is pretty easy. But, unless that gold is in your hand, is it yours? I think we all know the answer to that. Yet, lots of people are willing to buy their gold and have it stored in a bank in another country, as if it is theirs. Even if it is there, if war breaks out, do you think that the bank is going to grant access to it and fly it around to wherever the investor is at the time? I suspect not.
I was talking with a friend over coffee last night and he was talking about buying some gold, just to have some. Which I get. I don't have any, but it is kind of a "cool thing" to have, like a psychological safety net. However, then what? It doesn't travel well and if war breaks out, it means having to carry it on the person, through checkpoints and guards and all kinds of risky situations, in an environment that is likely already hostile.
As I said to my friend, back in say, 1938 Germany, it would have been possible for someone to pack up most of their belongings onto a cart or in a truck and leave with at least some of their value. However, the following year, that is unlikely and instead, those valuables become a target of sanctioned government theft. Yet, if value was digitally accessible back then as it is now, the same people would have been able to just walk away. Sure, they would still be missing a lot of their wealth in the form of material goods, but they would be able to have their wealth, without having to carry it at all.
This is revolutionary.
Of course, we know all about this here, but it is also why there is so much pushback from governments against crypto. Because if value can be transferred without them, they don't have a lot of control over their citizens. If value is lockable, brickable, and they can't access the wealth, it can't be stolen from the citizens and used to finance whatever the government wants. When people have mobile wealth, they are less prisoner of the country, and more owner of the country. They can choose to leave, if the government does what they don't like, without financial loss.
But it is interesting too, because while most people in the world still see crypto as something fake because it doesn't exist, they don't realise that everything of financial value, whether it be money, gold, silver or a Picasso, also don't exist in the sense of value. It is all about the perception of value, a very different thing. If perceptions change, the value changes also.
What happens if the US audit shows overreporting of gold holdings?
Well, economic destabilisation and the severe weakening of the US dollar to the point that trust erodes in it as the major global reserve currency. And if China is significantly underreporting? Well, that does the same, doesn't it? Economic turmoil, lack of faith and a shift in the way countries store their reserves. It could bring the US to a cataclysmic financial end as we know it, because so much of the US power and control comes through perception.
What do you think - is the all the gold there?
I guess we have to wait for an audit.
Will it be another 72 year wait?
Taraz
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Everyone is talking about Gold now, it is a sign for me to take profits on my Gold mining ETF! Well that and this chart:
Since I bought GDX - Gold Minders ETF on April 19 2021 it beat S&P500 and even QQQ! I liquidated half of my GDX position today...
I have some...my partner said last night, should we sell some? I'm like, fuck no, what sort of pirate sells his gold!
She wasn't impressed.
Well it depends on your goals for holding gold and if it is physical gold. Mine was gold miners and physical silver ETF. I am slowly scaling out of physical silver ETF and now out of gold miners ETF. I feel that these gold and silver ETFs are in the parabolic phase of the bull market and it is only a matter of time before they will have a severe correction and be dead money for a while. If gold is not in a speculative bubble right now I don't know what is:
I will take 4% in Money Market fund for now until I decide where to move it...
And I am scaling out of silver because of this:
It is much worse than gold long term performance wise and it tends to pop like in 1979 then drop and do nothing for over twenty years then another pop in 2010 then again dead money for a decade and now is another pop that is bigger than the previous two...
Looking good for you :)
Why was my first thought in response to the title "I hope not people would die"? x_x
I remember one year where we asked parents and grandparents for a "gold coin" donation and while we got a lot of coins (and some notes because some people would pop in a pink or blue note as "gold coin donation from whole family") there were (perhaps surprisingly given trends in general but otherwise not that surprising for the type of demographic in the area) a few people who "never carry cash anymore" and I said to them "WHAT HAPPENS IF THERE'S A POWER OUTAGE OR THE BANK MAKES A MISTAKE AND FREEZES YOUR ACCOUNT BY ACCIDENT INSTEAD OF THE BAD GUY WITH THE SAME OR SIMILAR NAME TO YOU OR ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS OR FAMILY GETS UP TO SOME INTERESTING THINGS AND THE GOVERNMENT DECIDES YOU'RE ASSOCIATED BECAUSE YOU KNOW THEM" and they kind of just shrugged helplessly and we laughed about how screwed they would be but I like to pretend from the look on their face that I made them think at least a tiny bit XD
I forgot about this one, I need to add it to my rapidfire list of rapidly escalating nonsense XD
I guess one of the slightly more useful things about the panpanic is that there are a lot less people confidently asserting that "they wouldn't do that because they just wouldn't" whenever I suggest outlandish things that they don't want to be true therefore they are immediately dismissed out of hand
Given how much money people have been printing willy nilly I don't think there is enough gold to be "reserve".
another fun thing is arguing with people including youngest about how money only has value because we agree it does and that could be translated to literally anything including pretty shells and crypto, but he was struggling with that and I think the glitchy brain gets in the way there too as I know it really does for me a lot of the time
Gold coins thrown off the empire state building :D
They assume that "someone will look after me" even though if it really does hit the fan, they are on their own.
I also suspect that it has been getting pilfered here and there for various activities that would be considered shady. For example, Russia bought drones from Iran using gold, due to frozen cash assets. They flew a plan with something like 1.3 tonnes of gold in it. Imagine it getting shot down :D
Most people don't know how instable "money" actually is :)
How complete was the 1953 audit? This suggests that only 3 out of 22 “sealed compartments” were inspected during the audit.
Meh, I’ve only got a tiny bit of gold. I do have a modest amount of silver but if the feces hit the air circulation unit, getting it out of the country might be easier said than done.
Do you think all the gold can be accounted for in the US holdings?
Just a guess, but no. If everything was above board, a full audit after they said they were going to do a full audit would be a no-brainer. That it’s not happening is suspicious.
Makes me think of Die Hard With a Vengeance and all the gold they stole from the federal reserve or whatever it was.
Yippee kayaa MF!
The lack of transparency and oversight is rightly fueling speculation. Keeping the details secret for security reasons is absurd. Is the mighty United States, which rules the entire world (!), unable to ensure the safety of 4,580 tons of gold?
If the speculation is true, the US dollar's reputation will gradually diminish, and gold prices will rise dramatically.
The safety of it is fine. But, that doesn't stop them from using it.
European countries sent their gold to the USA with ease, but when they decided to return it, everything was so difficult. Germany took decades, France, just as curious, you had to beg for the return of what belongs to you. For some time now, it has been suspected that there are no gold reserves in those vaults. Now it is a psychological issue. Media-wise, having the media doubt whether gold exists or not is a matter of doubt. What they achieve with that. I have no idea, but it is always on the front pages every time they touch on the subject.
The Swiss were good at holding gold for people....
yea.. gold! and hey.. I was born in 1974. :P
thanks to nixon for breaking the gold standard.
i still prefer silver tho.. more useful imo. although i'd take a gold bar if u are giving it.. :P
It all came together at the same time. The whole shift was a way to generate wealth for the few - to put shareholder wealth above the needs of the people.
i see.. sounds familiar.. ah hem.. TRUMP!
Nowadays, the price of gold is going beyond the reach of the common man day by day. It is a luxury! However, nowadays, many people are seeing that along with the increase in the price of gold, people are also eager to buy gold and many are buying it. However, I probably saw a prediction on social media (someone posted there) that in the distant future there will be a huge war over gold and 99 out of every 100 people will die there and the interesting thing is that every person before dying will think that I will definitely win the gold and stay alive. However, currently, big leaders are playing an invisible role behind gold, due to which it seems to me that the price of gold is increasing day by day.
When the 99% die, what is really worth living for?
These days, the price of gold in the market has increased rapidly, and many people in our country have started investing in gold because of the uncertainty surrounding cryptocurrencies and because they believe it to be a fake. This is because although gold can be seen physically, cryptocurrencies cannot be seen physically because they are digital. So the state of values is determined by the perception of individuals. I do not expect a true disclosure of gold reserves because of the problem of world political sovereignty.
Where do they store their gold when they buy it?
Definitely they will store bank's safes when they buy it.
That's where BTC comes in. But the blockchain has one key problem: It might be hackable. I have often imagined what chaos would envelope society, if the BTC blockchain was compromised and all the assets made away with. People like to tell themselves that the blockchain isn't hackable, but that hasn't been 100% established.
For me, the best, is to store half my wealth in physical, tangible assets, like gold, or real estate. And the other half as crypto and fiat. That way if any of these monetary systems are compromised I won't encounter financial ruin.
Talking of the government loosing their manipulative advantage over the masses because the finances of the masses are stored as cryptocurrency and not physically accessible, how about those crypto the government confiscate? Seems they will always find ways to get around and reestablish control.
It is hackable, everything is. Gold and real estate have all been taken away before, and again, neither travel well.
The entire economy needs to be restructured, and "value" reevaluated. This idea about tokenized wealth is not the solution, no matter the medium exchanged. Shells, squirrel pelts, gold, coins, digital... It really is all just the same.
At some point, if we don't kill ourselves first, we will grow out of this infancy.
It is all just metal. The moment we tow an asteroid in, or start mining one, all gold on Earth is worthless, as the demand will be outstripped by the supply.
Unless there's a new gold cartel in town, ala diamonds.
Gold has a pretty widespread industrial use and is in a lot of electronics. You wouldn't have been able to type your post out without gold :)
De Gold's.
Gold is very good, but it isn't the only alternative, even if the current best. If all gold disappeared, do you think they would use something else?
We can build a particle collider and do modern alchemy.
It is raining gold outside.
Maybe the north forte would have a lot of gold, i am sure the fed in ny it have a big gold reserves in their vault.
Big yes, but as big as they say? Rich men tend to lie about their size.
What about this, comes from KPMG.
As sad, there hasn't been a physical inspection for many years. The "audits" they do are not accurate, they are theoretical and based on assumptions.
Funny enough I've asked myself this question before, if you can't take it with you when things go south, do you really own it? My crypto wallet would cross borders way easier than a bag of gold bars ever would. This is wisdom
Everyone needs to have a "go bag" ready.
Oh yes I agree 😅
The need for an independent audit seems to be important. It would help keeping the public's trust in the current financial systems.