Taking it to the grave is absolutely possible, it's when you try to smuggle it into heaven that you run into problems.
"Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God"..............
You read a whole lot more into that statement than I wrote. Yell whatever words you wish, that doesn't change anything. I don't care a hoot what you believe about the CME, margins and speculation, it doesn't matter to me. I've never blamed anybody for anything I've done, because my decisions are controlled by me and they in turn control where and what I am in this life. You're flat out wrong about banks and governments not caring about the price of gold, and I know nothing I post will change your mind, so it doesn't matter. Real demand means nothing when 99% of what is traded is air.
And 99% of the "demand" there is air too. Gold is a convenient asset since its compact and storable, that is the nature that makes it good for central banks to have as reserves. Please educate me why the Fed cares about gold? In what way does this matter? Does the price of gold affect how much money they issue? Does it limit their ability to control markets some how? So many people post why "gold is so important to governments and bankers" that they manipulate the prices. WHY? In what way at all does it affect them today?
Sorry, you're wrong, 99% of physical demand is not air. They're taking delivery of the asset, so it's not just numbers being moved around on a balance sheet with some entity taking a transaction fee cut. If the fed didn't care about gold, why would it take their storage facilities 7 years to get Germany their gold when they asked for physical delivery? <(easy one for you) If they didn't care about gold, why wouldn't they let anybody audit Fort Knox? If they didn't care about the price of gold, why would they ever acknowledge it at all, even as a barbarous relic? The price of gold has nothing to do with the amount of money they issue, and it hasn't for about 45 years. It cannot or does not limit their ability to control the markets. They control that with digits in a computer and their partner banks. The only reason I can see the price of gold being a concern to them is when other countries threaten to use it as a central currency or means of exchange. If the reserve currency of the world is threatened by anything, that thing must be controlled. Whether it's gold, rice, notches on a stick or anything else, if it poses a threat to the dollar, it must and will be controlled.
Chris, you sure do a great job infuriating the conspiracy loonies here. Love it. If they were right we'd all be eating our silver and gold while living like trolls in a cave in post apocalyptic times. Thankfully they've never been right.
Either its due to my job as CFO making me the default company SOB so I am used to it, or maybe I am just naturally a SOB and that is why I have my job. Either way thanks!
Well, how relevant do you think $130 Billion in Gold reserves is in a 17 Trillion Dollar economy, my guess would be, not so much.
Not so much. I have explained what I believe is a reasonable explanation of German gold numerous times, (need time to unwind leases), Ft Knox has been audited and is not a Fed Reserve asset anyway, (inconvenient truth is it belongs to the US government, not the Fed), and have to ackowledge gold in passing because if they didn't some pm folks would wail on about THAT as "proof of a conspiracy" for years. Like I have said, I do not trust Washington as much as most people on this board. I simply disagree about this "conspiracy" topic is all. I am sure they are up to god knows what. When I went to the Gulf War they shot us up with all kinds of things that to this day refuse to tell us what. The scariest words in the world truly are, "Hi I am from the government and am here to help you".
No I don't really see a conundrum, I believe the German Gold thing is all overblown. I mean what is the absolute worst case scenario here, the Gold is gone and we owe the Deutch $36 Billion . Chump change, I think we spent more than that on cash for clunkers. My opinion is I really don't think the Gold is missing though. The Bullion enthusiasts seem to making the biggest stir about it. To me it does not seem like even the Germans care about a slow repatriation, so why should you or I. Also, like Chris, it is not like I trust everything and everybody, but the opposite is true also. Blind specualtion is not for me, you need to bring some proof to the table. I have never saw a lick of credible evidence of any long term, on going conspiracy in metal prices. The metal prices to me have moved in an expected, somewhat predicatable manner.
So why is China buying gold hand over fist? How about the comex vaults being nearly empty? What will happen when they do run out of gold?
Have you studied sir the COMEX stock levels? You say they are "nearly empty", yet there is still more there than historical. When there was a ton of action on the market, people brought stocks onto COMEX to back trading positions. Now that pm is no longer "hot" they have taken this metal out of the warehouses. PLease look at 30 or 40 years of COMEX stocks, and then compare this to today. I know a lot of commentators are using this as their latest "OMG the gold sky is falling", yet it is a half truth at best, outright manipulation of the facts at worst. China buying gold? Good for them. If they weren't the price would be falling pretty fast IMHO. They are a growing country, the are the biggest consumer of most commodities on earth. Their midle class is growing. I am sure someone in Europe was freaking out about all of the gold the US was buying 100 years ago, since back then WE were the new economic power "using up" commodity resources.
Chris has covered the Comex thing. It only takes about an hour to do your own DD and find he is telling the truth. It is my opinion that the people of China are buying Gold becuase they like. From the tone of you post, it would seem you believe something more sinister is going on. Why do you beleive the Chinese are buying Gold
He could be talking about the Thais buying gold, but in that case I would be the one writing the check for part of that. Man, does my wife like gold. I just wished she loved gold coins instead of gold jewelry.
LOL, you can fill me in on this since you have personal experience, but it was my understanding when the Thais(and other Asian cultures) buy Gold, it is more dual purpose, sort of like an investment your wear and they pay close attention to the price they are paying vs. spot. A bit different than here were "I just need a big hunk of bling "