Global Gold Diggers (IMF Plans to Sell Your Gold!)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 7 June 2008 | Staff

[shrinkermd]

There are some 103 million ounces of gold at the IMF, deposited by member countries when the fund's mission was to defend the gold standard in a balance-of-payments crisis. With an original value equivalent to $56 an ounce but now worth more than $850 an ounce, the ingots have generated huge gains for their owners. These are not only rich countries; some 25% of the gold belongs to developing nations. India has a paper gain of more than $2 billion, the U.S. about $21 billion.

This money rightfully belongs to the members. But the fund now has a budget that exceeds its income by about $300 million a year, so it's not surprising that the fund's managers are looking to crack the gold safe for a second time. In 1999 the fund revalued one-eighth of the bullion (12.9 million ounces) in the vault at market prices – then $335 an ounce – in order to boost its asset profile and generate money for debt relief.

Now it wants more. Under the "new income model" of the eminent persons, that same one-eighth would be sold outright. At $850 an ounce, proceeds would top $11 billion. Some $6.7 billion – which is the excess over the gold's current book value – would go to finance a permanent IMF endowment. The U.S. share of that gain is about $1.7 billion. At a 4% annual return, the gold sale would provide $267 million every year for IMF operations. Not coincidentally, that would just about fill the fund's annual budget shortfall.

This income would be exempt from member-country review. This is a recipe for policy mischief. Despite its reduced importance, the fund still has enough power to make trouble by again bailing out nations from bad decisions and imposing antigrowth policies in the bargain.

[shrinkermd]

Besides funding the International Monetary Fund, selling that much gold would depress the gold market, at least temporarily.

[Don Corleone]

They will find a way to waste it on the "War on Global Warming" which will be as expensive and successful as the "War on Poverty"/snic

[Jabba the Nutt]

If it were my gold, I could sell it. Obviously, I have no ownership in the gold. The US government and every other government is doing all they can't to destroy their own credibility as providers of "stores of value", ie money. This will obviously open the way for private business to get into the currency business.

Libertarianism, what people finally turn to, when they've tried every other solution first.

[OpusatFR]

China is buying gold hand over fist. First thing you know, Federal Reserve Fiat Bucks are dropped as an international currency and China issues a partial gold backed currency.

I think Dubai already has a gold dinar.

[djf]

The manipulations in the gold market are mind boggling.

If you take the national debt, and divide it by the number of ounces the treasury SAYS they have (whether they really have it or they’ve leased it out and they just keep it on the books anyways), you come up with a number that tells you what gold would be worth if we had a gold backed dollar.

Ready for this??

Somewhere in the neighborhood of $51K per ounce.

[David Isaac]

Gonna vote for Barr? I am seriously considering it myself.

[Jabba the Nutt]

I don’t like Barr. I remember him in some public congressional hearing, berating an invited witness. I just don’t like him. If the Constitution Party is on the ballot, maybe Chuck Baldwin. I haven’t decided how I’m going to vote. I could hold my nose and vote McCain as the most effective anti-Obama vote, but I don’t want that vote taken as support for McCain.