While we're on the subject of geopolitics and finances and title company executives who experience a sudden urge to drive nails into their skulls with nail guns and bankers deciding they want to fly off the tops of skyscrapers without anyone seeing them except of course for the newspapers which claim they were seen by "hundreds" of people, we should probably take time once again to pause and take stock of the efforts of Germany to repatriate its gold that everyone knows isn't there anymore, but that everyone is acting like it's all "fine" and it's really "there"...

Germany's Bundesbank has announced - no big surprise here - that they really don't need all their gold back, at least, not as quickly as they originally thought they did:

Bundesbank Changes Gold repatriation Schedule

Now, first, let's note that there was not just one, but two schedules for the repatriation of Germany's gold:

"One of the initiators of the German public campaign “Repatriate our Gold” is Peter Boehringer of “German Precious Metal Society” (est 2006). After lengthy efforts together with partner the “European Taxpayers Association”, the team finally, in January 2013, brought about Bundesbank´s decision to repatriate 300 tons of gold from the US and 374 tons from France by end-2020. Because asking your gold back from the US being quite sensitive, the repatriation would be spread over an eight year period. This was the original allocation schedule for the German official gold holdings, 3390.6 tons, set up in January 2013: ………………… 2013 ……….. 2020

Frankfurt ……. 31% ………… 50%

New York ……. 45% ………… 37%

London ………. 13% ………… 13%

Paris ………….. 11% ………….. 0% "What I just found out, and what presumably few people in the English speaking world knew, was that the Bundesbank had made an earlier repatriation request in the fall of 2012, to ship home 150 tons from the US in three years (ending in 2015). So after January 2013 two repatriation schedules co-existed. They were not mutually exclusive – so most Germany expected to see back was 150 tons from the US by 2015 – and ultimately 674 tons by end-2020 from both the US and France."

But in addition to two schedules, there's now something more:

The Handelsblatt writes today: ”The policy makers are putting pressure on the Bundesbank.” => To which we reply: German “Policy makes” have done almost nothing in the past 50 years. After David Marsh in 1992 and Bruno Bandulet in 2002, and Martin Siegel and Dimitri Speck, Martin Hohmann in 2002 was the first POLITICIAN who at least posed questions - albeit without any results. The same holds for lawyer and member of parliament (MP) Peter Gauweiler. And as a staunch trans-atlanticist, his MP-colleague Mißfelder who currently serves as the German “federal commissioner for the German-American relationship” would never have jumped on the Fed-Gold topic had there not been the mounting public pressure and a need to relieve some of that pressure. In any case, “Policy makers” have not helped us a lot. But at least, a few weeks ago, Mr Mißfelder has finally and rightfully called for the retrieval of ALL foreign holdings of the German Bundesbank (i.e., 2300 tons instead of the planned 700 tons; totally new “dimensions” for BuBa´s imagination…)! Handelsblatt: ”The repatriation falters – for enigmatic reasons.” => Don’t let the BuBa hear that Mr. Häring, otherwise you will quickly be labeled a conspiracy theorist. Nothing is “enigmatic” in the cellars and books of the BuBa and the Fed, absolutely nothing! We are talking (quoting BuBa) about “partner-banks whose integrity is not be questioned,” much like the purity of gold itself. Let that be heard!" (emphasis added)

Now before we continue any further, let's note two things. First, the best way to make sure no one knows how much gold has actually been shipped back to its rightful owner(Germany) is to completely obfuscate the schedule of deliveries... this leaves the shipper and receiver the latitude to make any sort of claim or pronouncement... the "country simple" term is "wiggle room." But secondly, note that Herr Boehringer alludes to the possibility that previous deliveries of gold to the Bundesbank has been something less than good delivery, and in fact, I reported in an earlier blog that in 1968, during one such repatriation attempt by the Bundesbank, what it asked for - good gold - and what it received - "coin" gold, i.e., less than pure gold that was alloyed with other metals for use in coins - were two different things.

But let's continue:

Why the delay? Well, as Herr Boehringer also intimates, there were claims of transportation difficulties (yea...right...as if all of a sudden the USA or Germany has forgotten how to build and navigate ships!) These, as he points out, could have been handled an entirely different way:

"And quite apart from that, the BuBa is of course free to simply ask the Fed for a swap of their bullion with a European gold holder or international dealer, upon which the bars would simply be retrieved from London, Zurich, or even Frankfurt. No physical transatlantic transport required – and everything guaranteed to be LGD compliant! The disadvantage would be that we paranoid gold historians would never get to see in Frankfurt the old German bullion from the 1950s and 1960s that are held at the Fed (since they would be swapped with European gold). But that would be a small disadvantage given that the BuBa has already refused publication of any photos or number lists of the already allegedly repatriated and supposedly already re-melted original Fed bullion, due to 'security reasons.'" (Emphasis added)

Now before I get to my high octane speculation of the day, I suggest that the "security reasons" alluded to by Herr Boehringer may be more than the usual song-and-dance about nations not disclosing their gold reserves as a matter of national security. I suspect that the deeper level of meaning behind all such appeals to "security" are that this gold has indeed already been sucked into the voracious maw of that hidden system of finance I have been hypothesizing for a few years. It is a national security matter for the obvious reasons, but also for the deeper reason that it is now in the use of the Anglo-Sphere's national-intelligence-military complex. Indeed, Boehringer cites MP Gauweiler to precisely this effect:

"Let us close this small update today not with our own conclusion, but with these “no-longer-conspiracy-theoretical” findings from the mouth of MP Gauweiler: "'I wonder why the Bundesbank cannot repatriate the gold and then allow it to rest in an appropriate form [as reported by GS Blog from 25.12.2013 ]. My suspicion: Apparently the bars are no longer untouched and available. This [leads to] the presumption that the gold bars, while in storage, have been used in a manner that lacked transparency.'"

Bingo, and that brings us to today's high octane speculation, and a conclusion I have only recently been arriving at. Let us recall the events that got all this gold rehypothecation and hidden system of fiance and gold repatriation calls started (in recent times) in the first place: the Bearer Bonds scandals. It is not, to my mind, insignificant that the calls for repatriation gained momentum after these various scandals - the Japanese Bearer Bond Scandal, the Spanish Bearer Bond Scandal, the Italian Bearer Bond Scandal - all broke in the news, and then were equally as quickly ignored. In the case of the Japanese version, it will be recalled, the story would not go away until President Obama had to make a statement reassuring everyone that no such bonds ever existed and that they were all fake and counterfeits. Except, as I like to point out, one doesn't go to all the trouble and expense to counterfeit something that doesn't exist in the first place. Counterfeiters counterfeiting seven dollar bills are exceedingly stupid if they do, as are counterfeiters counterfeiting $500,000,000 gold-backed bearer bonds, if the latter don't exist at all. The activity of such an operation itself thus implies some sort of access to inside knowledge.

But all that aside, even if one does not accept my speculation regarding this system, the fact of the "coincidental" rise in repatriation calls and the bearer bonds scandals remains.

And this raises important questions: since 1968, at least, Germany's Bundesbank has known something is not quite right with the USA's gold supply. More importantly, as I pointed out in several previous blogs, in 1928, the Reichsbank's Hjalmar Schacht was informed, while on a visit to the New York Fed, that Germany's gold could not be found. Additionally, there are those within Europe who knew after the war of the extent of the Nazi flight capital program, and of the massive amounts of bullion and other assets moved sureptiiously into Anglo-American banks. This fact, plus the fact that USA intelligence had struck its "dirty deal" with General Reinhard Gehlen's military intelligence group, Fremde Heere Ost, makes it supremely likely that at some deep level, before all the talk of gold repatriation even began, that such calls would be difficult, if not impossible, to meet.

IN short, I increasingly am coming to hold the opinion - the high octane speculation - that elements within the uppermost tier of power inside Germany knew that their calls for repatriation could not be met in any timely fashion. The calls to do so, therefore, had as their motivation and goal something else entirely, and that goal was probably long-term, and geopolitical in nature: it was to call into question the whole system, to expose it, for those paying attention.

As I put it long ago: when you're dealing with Martin Bormann, you're dealing with Dick Cheney, without the warmth and charm... and sooner or later, those markers will come due...

In support of this high octance speculation, I also draw attention to Mama Merkel's visit to China - with most of her Federal Cabinet - and the private talks they held... China began buying massive amounts of gold, at more or less the same time that the Bundesbank "caved" to political pressure and demanded the repatriation of its gold. These facts, plus the recent visit of the German Foreign Minister to Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart, serve to give notice that a huge geopolitical game and realignment is underway....

It remains to be seen if Ketchup Kerry, any more than cackling Hillary, is up to the task...

See you on the flip side.