Babaloynian Queen Nitetis’ message to the Germans
As gold takes a well deserved breather this morning and looks to consolidate around the $1740/£1065 area, we’re going to revisit last Friday’s Economissed published by our good friends at Market Securities.
Germany could prove important as they have not sold any of theirs [gold] and it would come in handy to pay their neighbors bills one would think….Lewis: “the senior official at the Bundesbank told me they already have thought about it….We have 3,400 tons of gold,” he said. “We are the only country that has not sold its original allotment from the late 1940s. So we are covered to some extent.”
[emphasis ours]
So germany has 3,400 tons of gold, but does it really have that amount? First question is where is all that gold held? Max Keiser has done a pretty good job at getting to the ‘bottom’ of this (pun intended) in a short documentary he made called ‘Brown’s Bottom’, referring of course to the then Chancellor Gordon Brown’s sale of over half the UK gold right at the bottom of the market at $254 per ounce.
Watch Brown’s Bottom Comment on German gold at 7:20
That almost throw-away line by Max Keiser after visiting the Bundesbank in Germany grabbed the attention of GATA (the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee). After all it’s a big deal if all the gold you own you don’t actually possess. So GATA sought clarity from Bundesbank itself on the matter:
While contending that Keiser’s assertion was “not correct,” the Bundesbank’s reply to Kirby acknowledged that at least some German gold reserves indeed are held outside the country, maintained that this is common practice among central banks, and implied that the Bundesbank is trading gold despite its long-held position that it is not selling the gold it has been entitled to sell under the European central bank gold agreement.
The Bundesbank’s reply to Kirby did not specify its “market-related reasons” for keeping gold at “major gold trading centers,” nor the bank’s “gold activities” there. But central banks often “lease” gold, lending it to bullion banks for sale into the market in exchange for a tiny interest payment, a currency-intervention mechanism used by central banks to suppress the gold price and support government currencies and bonds.
[emphasis ours]
So just how much of that 3,400 tons do the German’s keep in germany? According to this only about 5%, or 170 tons. To put that in perspective that’s just over half the size of the UK’s meagre gold holdings. And a whopping 66% of all of Germany’s gold is at the NY Federal reserve.
So if it doesn’t have it in its own vaults, can it be said that the Germans own very much gold at all?
This situation reminds us of story of Babylonian Queen Nitetis. When she died she had a tomb made that was prominent in the city centre with the words:
“If one of the Kings after me lack money, let him open this tomb and take what he will. But let him not open it unless he need, for it shall be worse for him.”
Then came along King Darius who thought that it was a shame that money was being hoarded in the tomb of Nitetis. So he decided to open the tomb up and take back the riches.
However when King Darius opened up the tomb instead of seeing gold as far as the eye could see, he could only see the dead body of the Queen and a note which read:
“If thou were not insatiate of money and a lover of gain, tho hadst not opened the resting place of the dead”
So when Germany asks for its gold back and goes down to the vaults for the NY Fed and swings the door of the safe open and instead of seeing pallets of gold there will be a simple note”
“Of course we stole your gold – we’re central bankers, it’s in our nature”
And all that bragging about being the only Central bank not to sell gold since the 1940’s will be proven to be just another example of bureaucratic empty rhetoric.
When push comes to shove, in an financial emergency of big enough proportions the President will, with a simple stroke of the pen, confiscate Germany’s gold. Why? As the story of the Scorpion and the frog tells us – it’s just in their nature.
One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.
The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn’t see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.
Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.
“Hellooo Mr. Frog!” called the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”
“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly
“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”
Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked.
“What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!”
“This is true,” agreed the scorpion, “But then I wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!”
“Alright then…how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the frog.
“Ahh…,” crooned the scorpion, “Because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!
So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog’s back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.
“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?”
The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog’s back.
“I could not help myself. It is my nature.”
Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.
Self destruction – “Its my Nature”, said the Scorpion…
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Posted by Thomas Paterson on Aug 15 2011. Filed under Analysis, Gold News.
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