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Dear
Friend of GATA and Gold:
Congratulations
to Kitco News and its reporter Daniela Cambone for having broken last week what this week Fox
News made into a national story, the call by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, for
a serious audit of U.S. gold reserves. The Fox News story, broadcast and
posted today and appended here, is notable for two reasons apart from calling
attention to the audit issue.
First,
the Fox News story quotes Paul as remarking that the audit should determine
not only the simple presence of gold in the U.S. government's vaults at Fort
Knox, Kentucky, and elsewhere but also "whether any of it has been
obligated."
That is, Paul is fully aware of the Federal
Reserve's involvement in gold swaps with foreign banks, an admission made by
Fed Governor Kevin M. Warsh a year ago in the
course of GATA's litigation against the Fed under the Freedom of Information
Act, even as Warsh insisted that the Fed's gold
swap arrangements must remain secret:
http://www.gata.org/files/GATAFedResponse-09-17-2009.pdf
And
second, the Fox News story is notable for the refusal of the Treasury
Department to comment about the gold audit issue: "Representatives from
the Treasury Department and U.S. Mint did not respond to requests for comment
on Paul's proposal."
Imagine
what would happen if mainstream financial news organizations began to put
detailed, coherent questions to the Fed and Treasury Department about the
disposition of the U.S. gold reserve, the gold swap arrangements, and the
overwhelming if obscure public record of Fed, Treasury, and other U.S.
government agency interest in suppressing the gold price:
http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21
Already
the Treasury Department is clamming up just as the Bank for International
Settlements clammed up in July when the Reuters news agency was shamed into
pressing the BIS with questions about the unprecedented gold swaps the BIS
recently had undertaken surreptitiously:
http://www.gata.org/node/8834
Practically
everyone seriously involved in the financial markets now acknowledges that
they're all manipulated all the time by central banks -- except the gold
market, which can't quite be talked about candidly yet. But thanks to Kitco News and Fox News, the gold market is another step
closer to real journalism.
An
introduction and link to the Kitco News story about
Paul's proposal can be found here:
http://www.gata.org/node/8954
Audio
of the Kitco News interview with Paul can be found
here:
http://www.kitco.com/KitcoNewsVideo/kitco_news.htm
CHRIS
POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
* * *
Rep.
Paul Calls for Gold Audit, Questions Whether Fort Knox Is Empty
From
Fox News, New York
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/31/re...rt-knox-audi...
There's
gold in them thar hills. Or is there?
Texas
Rep. Ron Paul, suggesting America's reserves may not be as robust as
officials claim, is calling for an independent audit of the U.S. gold held at
Fort Knox and other facilities.
The
Republican congressman known for his fierce opposition to virtually everything
the Federal Reserve does says the public deserves to know what's behind the
fortified walls of America's gold vaults -- particularly in case gold is ever
reintroduced as a basis for U.S. currency.
"It'd
be nice for the American people to know whether or not the gold is
there," Paul told Fox Business Network. And if it is all there, he said,
the public should know whether any of it has been obligated.
A
spokeswoman told FoxNews.com the congressman wants to introduce the bill in
September when Congress returns from recess.
Fort
Knox claims billions of dollars worth of gold are stored away in its secret
vault. The Fort Knox facility, a hyper-secure fortress in Kentucky that is
part of quintessential American lore, is encased in 750 tons of reinforced
steel, as well as thousands of cubic feet of concrete and granite. No
visitors are allowed.
Though
Paul no doubt wants a more thorough inspection, the U.S. Mint is subjected to
regular audits, including at Fort Knox. The Mint claims gold is removed in
"very small quantities" for this purpose alone, and that no other
gold has been transferred in or out of the facility for a long time.
The
latest audit, conducted by KPMG, did not appear to detail U.S. gold holdings
-- dealing more with gold and silver sales, coin circulation, workplace
environment, and other issues -- but did state that gold and silver continue
to be held at Fort Knox.
Scrutinizing
U.S. monetary policy, though, is nothing new for Paul. Last year he pushed on
Capitol Hill a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, an effort that ended with a
Fed audit provision tucked inside the financial regulation package.
Paul,
in an interview last week with industry publication Kitco
News, first outlined his next campaign.
He
said there is "reason to be suspicious" about U.S. gold holdings
and suggested officials were manipulating the price of gold to prop up the
perceived value of paper money. Paul said "it is a possibility"
that neither Fort Knox nor the New York Federal Reserve vaults have any gold.
He also said he will call for the U.S. government to legalize the use of gold
and silver as "legal tender" alongside the U.S. dollar. Let them
compete, he says.
"If
people get tired of using the paper standard, they can deal in gold or
silver," he told Kitco News.
Representatives
from the Treasury Department and U.S. Mint did not respond to requests for
comment on Paul's proposal.
Gold
and silver investment has drawn renewed attention amid concerns about the
stability of the U.S. dollar. The United States moved away from the gold
standard in the early 1970s, but Paul said it's good to know what the United
States holds just in case. He warned the U.S. government is setting the stage
for a depression by trying to print, spend and regulate its way out of the last
recession.
"Who
knows? Someday we might want to have a gold standard again and quit all this
printing-press money, so it would be nice to know how much we have,"
Paul said in the interview with Fox Business Network.
Chris
Powell
Secretary / Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee
www target="_blank".GATA.org
* * *
Join GATA here:
Toronto Resource Investment Conference
Saturday-Sunday, September 25-26, 2010
Metro Toronto Convention Center, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
http://www.cambridgeconferences.com/index.php/toronto-resource-investmen...
The Silver Summit
Thursday-Friday, October 21-22, 2010
Davenport Hotel, Spokane, Washington
http://www.silversummit.com/
New Orleans Investment Conference
Wednesday-Saturday, October 27-30, 2010
Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel
http://www.neworleansconference.com/redirect.php?page=index.html&source_...
* * *
GATA is a civil rights and educational organization
based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue
Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at www.GATA.org. GATA is grateful for financial
contributions, which are federally tax-deductible in the United States.
Help keep GATA going
GATA is a civil rights and educational
organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S.
Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe
at:
http://www.gata.org
To contribute to GATA, please visit:
http://www.gata.org/node/16
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