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For years GATA has been glad to respond to questions
about the gold market from financial journalists in the mainstream news media
but we have always urged them to question the primary actors in the market,
central banks, particularly in light of the documentation we have amassed
showing or suggesting their often-surreptitious intervention in the market:
http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21
As far as we know, no such journalists have yet
tried to question central banks about gold and reported the answers or
refusals to answer, even as the efforts to question Germany's central bank,
the Bundesbank, by the Canadian market analyst Rob
Kirby in 2009 and the German freelance journalist Lars Schall
in 2010 extracted some sensational confirmations in the form of denials:
http://www.gata.org/node/7713
http://www.gata.org/node/9363
So to make it easy for mainstream news media
financial journalists in case they ever want to pursue the gold story
seriously, GATA compiles below some critical questions for central banks.
These are only a start and we'll welcome ideas for
additional questions.
These questions also may be used to turn away those
financial writers who disparage complaints of gold market manipulation
without ever having first put a critical question to a central bank.
For the Federal Reserve
1) What are the Fed's gold swap arrangements with
foreign banks that were acknowledged by Fed Governor Kevin M. Warsh in his adjudication of GATA's
freedom-of-information request in September 2009?:
http://www.gata.org/files/GATAFedResponse-09-17-2009.pdf
2) What are the other parties to these gold swap
arrangements?
3) Have such arrangements ever been implemented? If
so, when, how, and why?
4) What are the other gold-related documents the Fed
succeeded in withholding from disclosure in GATA's freedom-of-information
lawsuit against the Fed in February 2011? Will the Fed disclose them now? If
not, why?
http://www.gata.org/node/9560
For former Federal Reserve Board of Governors member
Kevin M. Warsh
1) In your commentary in The Wall Street Journal on
December 6, 2011, you wrote that "policy makers are finding it tempting
to pursue 'financial repression' -- suppressing market prices that they don't
like." You added, "Efforts to manage and manipulate asset prices
are not new."
http://www.gata.org/node/10839
Which prices did you mean as being subject to
"financial repression"?
2) Which previous "efforts to manage and
manipulate asset prices" did you mean?
3) Did you learn about "financial
repression" during and because of your service at the Fed?
For the U.S. Treasury Department
1) In the last 20 years has the U.S. government
tried to influence the price of gold, openly or surreptitiously, directly or
through intermediaries? If so, when, how, and for what purpose?
2) Has the Treasury Department or any other agency
of the U.S. government, including the Exchange Stabalization
Fund, undertaken gold swaps or gold swap arrangements or other gold
transactions in the last 20 years?
3) Are the gold-related records of the U.S.
government, including those of the Treasury Department and the Exchange
Stabilization Fund, fully available to the public? If not, why?
For the Bank of England and the United Kingdom
Treasury
1) In December 2011 the Bank of England acknowledged
that it had been active surreptitiously in the gold market prior to 2007 and
did not want its gold transactions known to the market generally:
http://www.gata.org/node/10778
With whom were these transactions undertaken and
what were their purposes?
2) Will the Bank of England and the U.K. Treasury
fully disclose their gold-related records? If not, why?
For the
Deutsche Bundesbank
1) In August 2009 the Bundesbank
replied to an inquiry from the Canadian financial writer Rob Kirby about the Bundesbank's handling of Germany's gold reserves. The Bundesbank wrote: "The Deutsche Bundesbank
keeps a large part of its gold holdings in its own vaults in Germany, while
some of its gold is also stored with the central banks located at major gold
trading centres. This has historical and
market-related reasons, the gold having been transferred to the Bundesbank at these trading centres.
Moreover, the Bundesbank needs to hold gold at the
various trading centres in order to conduct its
gold activities. It is common practice for central banks to keep part of
their gold reserves abroad."
http://www.gata.org/node/7713
In December 2010 the Bundesbank
replied to an inquiry from the German freelance journalist Lars Schall. The Bundesbank wrote:
"In managing foreign reserves, the Bundesbank fulfils one of its mandated tasks as an integral part of
the European System of Central Banks. We trust you will understand that we
are not able to divulge any further information regarding this activity.
Particularly with respect to the confidential nature of information about
where gold holdings are kept, we are unable to go into any greater detail
concerning exact locations and the quantities stored at each of these.
Likewise, owing to the strategic nature of the activity, we are not at
liberty to provide you with more detailed information about gold
transactions."
http://www.gata.org/node/9363
What are the "gold activities" cited in
the reply to Kirby? What is the "strategic ... activity" cited in
the reply to Schall?
2) Has the Bundesbank
undertaken any gold swaps or gold swap arrangements with the U.S. Federal
Reserve, U.S. Treasury Department, or any agency of the U.S. government or
other government? If so, when, and what were the purposes of the swaps?
3) Will the Bundesbank
make its gold records fully available for public inspection? If not, why?
For the International Monetary Fund
1) Where is the IMF's gold kept? Is it kept in the
IMF's own vaults, in the vaults of IMF member nations, or elsewhere?
2) Is the IMF's gold actually in the IMF's
possession or is it essentially just a claim on the gold reserves of its
member nations?
3) When during the last 20 years the IMF said it was
selling gold, did any gold actually leave any vault? If so, how much, and
from which vaults did it leave and to which vaults was it delivered?
4) Will the IMF make its gold records fully
available for public inspection? If not, why?
For the Bank for International Settlements
1) What is the "gold pool" cited by BIS
President Karl Otto Pohl in his interview with the financial journalist
Edward Jay Epstein published in the November 1983 edition of Harper's
magazine?
http://www.gata.org/node/11622
2) Exactly how and why does
the BIS trade in gold on its own behalf or on behalf of its members? Is
information about this trading fully available to the public? If not, why?
3) A presentation made by the BIS to prospective
central bank members at a meeting at BIS headquarters in Basel, Switzerland,
in June 2008 --
http://www.gata.org/node/11012
-- includes, among a list of BIS services,
interventions in the gold market. What are these interventions and their
purposes and exactly how are they undertaken? Are they public or secret? If
they are secret, why?
4) In a speech delivered at a conference at BIS
headquarters in Basel in June 2005 --
http://www.gata.org/node/4279
-- William S. White, head of the BIS' Monetary and
Economic Department, said that among the major purposes of international
central bank cooperation is "the provision of international credits and
joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign
exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful."
In the last 20 years what efforts
has the BIS made or assisted to influence asset prices, particularly
gold prices? Of which such efforts is the BIS aware?
5) Did the BIS undertake any gold transactions
simultaneous with the devaluation of the Swiss franc in September 2011?
For every central bank
1) What is the central bank's policy toward gold?
2) Has the central bank loaned or swapped gold or
does it have gold swap arrangements with other central banks or government
agencies? If so, who are the counterparties of these swaps and swap
arrangements and what is their purpose?
3) Is it the bank's policy to support the gold derivatives
market by making the bank's gold available for sale, swap, lease, other
exchange, or hypothecation? If so, why?
4) Are the bank's gold-related records fully
available for public inspection? If not, why?
For JPMorgan Chase & Co.:
1) Are the enormous interest rate derivatives
positions and the monetary metals positions on the bank's books the positions
of JPMorgan Chase & Co. itself or are they essentially the positions of
the U.S. government or other governments?
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1249407911.php
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
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