sell the gold hank

I'm always a little slow getting ideas but it just struck me what Paulson should have done with the bailout package last week.
The US has 32000tons of gold in storage.
Taxpayers were screaming about how they had to bail out the banks and they would see no benefit apart from the cost to them.
Politicians were screaming that adding $700B more to the frightening the national debt was a bad idea.
some even voted against it twice.
So the solution : Sell some of your gold reserves Mr Paulson, your country has plenty, evrybody keeps saying that the world financial system is so sophisticated now that gold doesnt really serve a purpose - in fact its only good as a paperweight according to some.
So sell it up and protect $.
At current rates 1 ton = 35840 ozs = $32,256,000.
Sell 22,000 tons and you would have covered the whole debt and had change left over for some minor pork barrelling and everyone would have been happy.
I wonder why they didnt do that - maybe they dont believe their own rhetoric or maybe the gold aint there like so many gold bugs have suggested over the years.

Moved from the "United States" forum. Original message number: 1093