Dating from 1818, Brown Brothers Harriman describes itself as the oldest private bank in the United States. It is also the newest recipient of a GATA tin-foil hat, on account of its acknowledgment that central banks are surreptitiously manipulating the gold market.
The acknowledgment is reported today by Ross J. Burland, editor of the FX Street Internet site, who excerpts comments made by BBH "analysts" about Venezuela's recent pawning of its gold reserves --
http://www.gata.org/node/15292
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/24/ven...idUSL1N0XL0T...
-- and the question of whether gold is better than dollars.
Among the "key quotes" from BBH as noted by Burland:
"One of the advantages for Venezuela of the gold swap is that by some accounting it may still count the gold as part of its reserves. This underscores that central bank reserves may not always be what they seem. Central banks have used a number of ploys to hide the extent of their intervention, like operating in the forward market or conducting off-balance-sheet operations, like Brazil's currency swaps. Similarly, Russia had included its sovereign wealth funds in its reserve calculations, but they are not liquid or available."
The FX Street report on the comments by the BBH analysts is headlined "Venezuela and Their Gold-vs.-Dollar Experience" and it's posted here:
http://www.fxstreet.com/news/forex-news/ar...=9308f996-0c...
