fort knox bullion bars show up in dubai, page-21

I would actually be quite surprised if Fort Knox isn't still full of gold.

The US has had no real reason to sell off its gold supplies, as it has had no trouble funding its governmental operations via issuing mountains of paper debt. The US currency has only been under any significant amount of pressure in the past few years and for the majority of the time it's been declining, one could argue that it has actually been in the US's interests to see it decline.

Also, being the reserve currency, the US does not hold any forex reserves (in the way other countries do). Hence, its gold is the US's only "reserve" asset.

There are plenty of other countries around the world which, not being reserve currencies, have run short on foreign exchange reserves over the past 40 years. They have often sold off their gold reserves, in order to replace them with fiat reserves, to enable their international trade or debt obligations, or because they fell for the argument that gold would no longer matter. Also, remember that most central banks are required to pay their profits to the government. Foreign treasury bonds pay interest, whereas gold does not. Greedy, short-term thinking to help budgetary balances is a staple of governments world-wide. So, there would be plenty of "official" gold selling and leasing going on without the US having to participate. At any given point in time, it would only take a bit of gold from some minor banks to move the physical and paper markets. [Mind you, the past 6 months' sell-downs would be a different story - there's an awful lot of gold been sold during a short time.]

Maybe the USA doesn't have the entire 8,000-odd tons it claims, but I'll bet it has a very, very significant portion of it. Far more than the conspiracies would have us believe.

It's the US's greatest "back-up plan". If (when, actually) the existing US dollar becomes inflated to the point where it loses it point (or others' faith) as a reserve currency, I believe that there is a significant chance that gold will fulfill some role as an international reserve item.

In that case, the countries with the largest gold reserves are the most powerful.

China and Japan end up with, what? A whole warehouse full of hyper-inflated, junky US treasuries and agencies. The USA ends up with more official gold reserves than any other country in the world.

The USA wins, again! They may be sneaky and increasingly corrupt, but I don't think they're stupid.

Anyway, it's all speculation. I don't know how one would ever find out the truth of the matter.