why will it take the fed 7 years ?, page-56

Ophir,

The gold's there, here's something from Jon Nadler who's been having a laugh at goldbug sensationalism.


"Picking up right where we left off last week, we now bring you a little more Bundes Bull myth-busting content, courtesy of a…German banker. Commerzbank’s Carsten Fritsch addressed the (non-) issue of the Bundesbank moving some of its gold reserves back onto German soil and made some noteworthy observations on Deutsche Welle. First, Fritsch noted that — sizeable as they might be at 3,400 tonnes — the country’s gold reserves represent little more than “symbolic” value, especially when seen in the light of Germany’s five trillion euro-large sovereign debt. As well, the gold tonnage is not especially large, considering that individual Germans are estimated to own as much as 7,500 tonnes of the metal.

More importantly, Fritsch launched a broadside on the conspiracy theorists’ fatally flawed arguments that the move was somehow indicative of a huge amount of missing bullion and/or of a terminal distrust of the Fed or fear of U.S. collapse. It was in fact, partially the Bundesbank’s own fault that such wild fairytales were born, to begin with. The central bank did not conduct recurring audits of its golden stash. As for the Zero Hedge style reality-challenged claptrap that implies that Germany was somehow “denied access to its gold because it isn’t there to begin with because it has all been lent out,” The Bundesbank’s Carl-Ludwig Thiele (a board member) remarked in a Frankfurt press conference that “Everywhere we were welcomed with open arms. We were shown the inventory lists and inspected individual gold bars, which were then crosschecked with those lists.” Sounds like an open and shut case to us, folks."