finding that amount of gold bars is incredibly hard. People usually respond "comex & london" has gold bars? I dare say 30% are fake, numerous occasions where gold bars stored in the vault are fake.
In light of this week’s banking collapse precipitated by (among other things) lost confidence, I’ll ask:
To what extent does it matter that some of the bars in the vault are fake if everyone has confidence they’re real?
Also it seems like anyone who might inadvertently acquired some in lieu of the real thing & suspect the fraud down the line, they really have little incentive to cut the bar in half to find out. Best not to know.
At some point someone will need to melt it down to use for industry, or for another purpose, or form. Say a comex bar, or smaller bars, or for alloying, whatever.
Anyone who thinks they might be that person, or thinks they might sell to that person, certainly cares! They’re the ones who will suffer the consequences of the fraud.
Fort Knox is audited regularly, and in 1974 cogress sent a delegation to verify it. One can easily imagine nefarious actors siphoning some off; how many tungsten bars are in there? They’d have to test every bar to know for sure. Has this been done?
I have to laugh though - it would be trivial for someone in the executive hierarchy there to walk off with them and cover it up. The whole thing is intentionally opaque.
And even better - that gold was mostly gold seized by the gov’t from private citizens when private ownership of gold was banned and all circulating coinage and other gold was seized!
It truly is an attractive nuisance for the corrupt.
There are some great historical nuggets in that archive, I liked this appeal to people to stop hoarding pennies and get them back into circulation.
> Creating a shortage where it does not exist can adversely affect every public spirited citizen, taxpayer and conservator of the earth’s resources. It is inflationary should merchants start to round off sales to the next nickel due to lack of pennies to make change.
> Again, I’d like to emphasize. There are plenty of pennies. But they are in the wrong places.
> It is estimated that over 30 billion pennies are in circulation—doing the job for which they were intended. Somewhere in this vast country of ours, however, in excess of 30 billion pennies are in hiding. These are the pennies I’m looking for. They are in dresser drawers, shoe boxes, pickle jars; most anyplace you can think of that will get them out of pocket and out of sight. They are unwanted, unused and unappreciated.
ineedasername|3 years ago
To what extent does it matter that some of the bars in the vault are fake if everyone has confidence they’re real?
Also it seems like anyone who might inadvertently acquired some in lieu of the real thing & suspect the fraud down the line, they really have little incentive to cut the bar in half to find out. Best not to know.
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
lazide|3 years ago
Anyone who thinks they might be that person, or thinks they might sell to that person, certainly cares! They’re the ones who will suffer the consequences of the fraud.
killingtime74|3 years ago
ASalazarMX|3 years ago
le-mark|3 years ago
https://www.usmint.gov/learn/history/historical-documents/in...
lazide|3 years ago
And even better - that gold was mostly gold seized by the gov’t from private citizens when private ownership of gold was banned and all circulating coinage and other gold was seized!
It truly is an attractive nuisance for the corrupt.
spiralx|3 years ago
> Creating a shortage where it does not exist can adversely affect every public spirited citizen, taxpayer and conservator of the earth’s resources. It is inflationary should merchants start to round off sales to the next nickel due to lack of pennies to make change.
> Again, I’d like to emphasize. There are plenty of pennies. But they are in the wrong places.
> It is estimated that over 30 billion pennies are in circulation—doing the job for which they were intended. Somewhere in this vast country of ours, however, in excess of 30 billion pennies are in hiding. These are the pennies I’m looking for. They are in dresser drawers, shoe boxes, pickle jars; most anyplace you can think of that will get them out of pocket and out of sight. They are unwanted, unused and unappreciated.
https://www.usmint.gov/learn/history/historical-documents/mi...
saalweachter|2 years ago
throwbigdata|3 years ago
saalweachter|3 years ago
rationalist|3 years ago
Also called "Good Delivery Bars", typically 400oz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Delivery