Koos Jansen: Why did European central banks sell gold

Focusing on the Netherlands Central Bank's reduction of its gold reserves, Bullion Star market analyst and GATA consultant Koos Jansen asks why the European central banks sold (or purported to sell) so much gold from the announcement of the Washington Agreement on Gold in 1999 through 2010, when such sales stopped almost completely. Jansen cites a comment by the Dutch treasury secretary in 2011 in support of his speculation that the gold sales may have been intended to help redistribute amd equalize official gold reserves around the world.

This is exactly what the U.S. economists and fund managers Paul Brodsky and Lee Quaintance speculated in 2012 -- that central banks were moving their gold around so that nations would be better prepared for a complete resetting of the world financial system, in which gold would play an important part for building confidence:

http://www.gata.org/node/11373

Of course on a planet with actual financial journalism, mainstream news organizations would question central banks about this -- and about everything else central banks do. Since we're living on Earth, Jansen's citing the Dutch parliamentary archive and posing the question it suggests will have to suffice today. His commentary is headlined "Why Did European Central Banks Sell Gold?" and it's posted at Bullion Star here:

https://www.bullionstar.com/blog/koos-jansen/...n-central-ba...