← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Davey Crockett
Thread ID: 13683 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2004-05-13
2004-05-13 20:27 | User Profile
The following was posted on an economic forum:
There is a small non-profit foundation, GATA ([url]www.gata.org[/url]) that has been doing a lot of reseach on this issue over the last six years. Their view is that the price of gold has been "managed" by a coalition of central banks, since 1996, in order to disable the US$ price of gold as an inflation signal. They claim that through this policy about 70% of the Western central banks' gold holdings on their books has been leased out, swapped out, or otherwise encumbered by financial derivatives.
GATA has on their web site and a lot of their studies showing the paper trail of the various gold holdings of central banks. Also some of their consultants have done some interesting studies of intra-day charts showing suspicious trading patterns.
Some good sources on this, besides their web site are "Gold Wars", by Ferdinand Lips, and "Why the Markets went Crazy" by Tim Lee.
Lips is a Swiss banker and financial historian. He tells the story of how the modern generation of central bankers hate gold and want to rid the world's monetary system from any reliance on gold as a reserve asset. He gives a good summary of GATA's findings, and then tells the story of how the Swiss Franc, once the world's soundest currency and the only one bakced by gold, has gone the way of all fiat currencies, as the Swiss government was persuaded by various Eurocrats to sell of a big chunk of their gold holdings.
Lee's book is a history of the financial bubble, in which he almost approaches some Austrian insights from a mainstream perspective.
2004-05-13 20:30 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Davey Crockett]The following was posted on an economic forum:
There is a small non-profit foundation, GATA ([url]www.gata.org[/url]) that has been doing a lot of reseach on this issue over the last six years. Their view is that the price of gold has been "managed" by a coalition of central banks, since 1996, in order to disable the US$ price of gold as an inflation signal. They claim that through this policy about 70% of the Western central banks' gold holdings on their books has been leased out, swapped out, or otherwise encumbered by financial derivatives.
GATA has on their web site and a lot of their studies showing the paper trail of the various gold holdings of central banks. Also some of their consultants have done some interesting studies of intra-day charts showing suspicious trading patterns. .[/QUOTE]
Here is a link to their report: [url]http://www.gata.org/congress.pdf[/url]