Ronan Manly: As World Gold Council's membership falls, it hikes fees to GLD

As the World Gold Council's membership of mining companies has been declining, reducing annual dues payments, the council now is generating most of its income through royalties from the exchange-traded gold fund GLD, gold researcher and GATA consultant Ronan Manly reports today.

Australia's Newcrest Mining, Manly writes, is the latest major miner to withdraw from the council, though no one wants to talk about it. Manly adds that the council has just increased the charges it assesses against GLD.

Despite its declining revenue, the council maintains extremely plush offices around the world, Manly adds.

If the council's objective is to get the gold price up, it hasn't had much success lately. While the failure may be attributed to the Western central bank gold price suppression scheme, the council remains studiously silent about it even as the diversion of some of the council's still-ample resources from jewelry promotion to exposure of market rigging might be productive.

All GATA's documentation of gold price suppression, archived here --

http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21

-- and summarized here --

http://www.gata.org/node/14839

-- has been shared with the council, but the council has never acknowledged it, giving rise to suspicions about the council's intentions.

Manly's review of the council's operations seems to be the most comprehensive of anything published in public. It is headlined "The Funding Model of the World Gold Council: GLD Fees and Gold Miner Dues" and it's posted at Bullion Star here:

https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly...del-of-the-w...