Monkey Business!

Over the weekend GATA reported that Lars Schall has had correspondence with the Bundesbank regarding Germany’s planned repatriation of gold. As you know, Germany has reported that 37.5 tons were delivered last year which is about 50 tons shy of what was the announced plan last January and was expected to be delivered over the course of 2013. Peter Boehringer (the equivalent of GATA’s Chris Powell here in the States) asked many questions of the Bundesbank, the most central being why was this gold “recast” before being returned?

As there has not been an audit of Ft. Knox since the 1950’s, nor bar list made public since this German gold was claimed to have been deposited with the NY Fed back in the 1950’s and 60’s. This is a can of worms that has already been opened and any “answer” will only lead to more questions. So why exactly “would” the gold need to be recast before sending it back? Never mind the obvious question that we’ve already asked, why will it take up to 8 years to send them their gold? You see, gold has a “fingerprint.” Once it is refined down to “99.999” pure…the fingerprint is erased. For example, the “coin melt” that came from the 1934 confiscation has a fingerprint of 90% purity. The gold that the Soviet Union was selling back in 1990 was 89% and had the Czar’s stamp on it which was a dead giveaway that they were out of gold (money), they collapsed within 6 months and it was foretold by this “fingerprinted gold.”

For these 37.5 tons to be recast brings up the question of where did it come from. Was this the original gold that was safe kept? Or was the German gold leased out 100 times over and is this gold from another source? Is this like the bank employee or even retail cashier who stole from the register with the intent of replacing it before anyone found out? This is a very legitimate question because we know for a fact that demand has outstripped supply for 20 years or more…and the supply had to come from somewhere, right?

If the gold was held on an “allocated” basis then the bars should at most need a feather duster to clean them up before shipment…unless they are not the same bars. There is no other explanation to this, the NY Fed would have absolutely zero incentive to go through the process of recasting (refining?) even 1 ounce if they were shipping what was originally stored. Germany would not, should not expect their gold back in any form other than how it was originally delivered to the NY Fed in the first place.

I call “monkey business” on this one because there are just too many questions. The questions collectively ALL have the same obvious answers. All of these obvious answers point to the same conclusion. The German gold that is being delivered is not the same gold that was supposedly deposited over 50 years ago. The fact that their 300+ tons (20% of the supposed total) will take over 8 years to deliver means that it’s not just sitting in a corner collecting dust and waiting patiently to be delivered…it has already been mobilized and “used” years ago. The conspiracy wackos who used to be laughed at with their (our) farfetched questions and claims had merit after all…and all along the way!

Please remember that even though this gold that has been delivered no longer has any fingerprint left to it, foreigners can (will) eventually come to the obvious conclusion. The process may take longer and be far more complex and obfuscated than the Soviets delivering gold with the Czar’s stamp on it…the result will be the same. We live in an era where everything is supported by confidence, how “confident” will anyone be if (when) it is known that “the gold is long gone?” This is a very serious question and is the very core reason I have been screaming “buy” gold for over 15 years no matter what the price has been. Any price between $252 and $1,920 over the last 15 years has been too low by orders of magnitude. You could in my opinion add a “0” to the price of gold and silver…and still possibly not be the correct price to truly clear the market.

We will not know exactly how much “monkey business” has already gone on until the music stops. Whatever levels that gold and silver do finally settle out to when the dust clears will be an indicator as to exactly “how much.” All you need to do is read the questions that are being asked and then use your own common sense. Any and all questions speak to one thing, there has been fraud. Gold and silver in their physical forms are “anti-fraud” and will be priced accordingly after the revelation.