ron paul - is there gold in fort knox?, page-15

From Le Met today:


Bill,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world
/us_and_americas/article5989271.ece

What the US Treasury said in this Times article is a complete joke.

QUOTE

A spokesman for the US Treasury told The Times that US gold holdings are audited every year by the Department of Treasury's Office of Inspector General. He confirmed that although independent auditors oversee the process they are not given access to the Fort Knox vault.

END

This goes against the basic principles of an audit. It is a farce. "Hey, you guys wait here outside Fort Knox and we will go inside and when we come out we want you to verify that we showed you a piece of paper that says there is 8,100 mt inside. OK?" We are not talking about seeing plans for nuclear weaponry, we are talking about counting bars of gold AND even if the count is good to examine and audit paperwork to verify that the gold is not encumbered in any way. The amount of gold that Fort Knox is supposed to hold is not a secret. There are only two inferences that can be drawn from banning any third party from the vaults

1) Treasury is paranoid someone might steal the gold during an audit

2) All or some of the gold is not there or is encumbered which would be revealed by an audit

The first point is too ridiculous to be considered. Which only leaves the second. This is nothing to do with "conspiracy theories" it is just rational logic. If you do not follow the basic principles of an audit the audit should not be done at all. Doing an "internal audit" that is not verified by an external third party is a complete sham. The obvious question is why would an audit be a sham?

Treasury’s response to GATA’s request for information on any "swaps" that have occurred with respect to the US gold reserves was also a sham. They withheld over 400 pages of documents because they contain, among other things, "trade secrets" and "privileged or confidential" memorandums or letters. Now what "Trade secrets" could anyone have related to 8,100 mt of gold supposedly gathering dust in Fort Knox for decades? The Treasury only supplied us with one page which was an e-mail referring to a change in the format of the Treasury’s monthly report! Considering that the gold belongs to the Treasury NOT to the FED how could the FED be in procession of "Trade Secrets" that would not be in documents also held by the Treasury? The very fact that this information was withheld from GATA shows the FED has "secrets" about the US gold reserves and they are of a "commercial" nature if they are "Trade secrets", they are not secrets relating to National Security; and those same secrets would be a very good reason why a sham audit has to be run because the scrutiny of a proper audit would reveal the gold is encumbered or is not all present and correct……