This is exactly why it doesn't take much of a spike in demand to really run up the price. All of the above ground gold in the world would fit in 2 Olympic sized pools (50m X 25m X 2m) http://www.firsteaglefunds.com/downloads/news/Rukeyser_1009.pdf
S&P rating service has recently indicated that HSBC is one of the strongest banks in the world. With this kind of strength, they are attracting large clients and capitalizing on their reputation. Remember the door swings both ways. Some banks who are now out of business had their demise accelerated by customers who took their deposits and ran at the first whiff of bad news. As for B of A selling deposit box contents on E-Bay, this sounds like an urban legend. There is a process called escheatment that provides an orderly transition of safety box contents when an owner cannot be located. In escheatment proceedings, the contents revert to the state after a period of time. This period can be anywhere from 3-15 years depending on state law. There are websites maintained by the state where you can look up unclaimed property. If unclaimed property goes unclaimed, it's sold by the state, not the bank.
no! the B of A story is not an urban legend, it was on the news awhile ago about 2-3 months ago. It was a bank in Cali that had a rogue employee that was accessing peoples valuables and then selling them on eBay. The bank itself has apologized for it....so I apologize if I made it sound like B of A itself as a whole was doing this to their customers. I'll see if I can find this on youtube, but probably not... Here you go, I found it, it was an ABC news special.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f94KnOALaB4&feature=related
Thanks for clarifying this. As you're probably aware, there's rogue employees in most every type of business, but they're not the norm..