*chuckle*  my mom did the right thing in leaving before times get REALLY daffy

Where did you get this information? I read about the request to transfer the gold but the Financial Times (London) has not reported anything to confirm the story that it is not available. I can't believe they would miss that.  

I check NYT too, the only story is from January 16, "Germany to Move 674 Tons of Gold"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/business/global/german-central-bank-to...

I'll give their link since you don't have to register to read it.

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EDIT

I googled "German gold missing" in case it was a breaking development, but I just got a story from The Washington Post saying some people are asking why Germany wants it back.  Quote:

But while the notion of billions of dollars in gold bars being transported across the Atlantic and the Franco-German countryside triggered a thousand heist jokes on Twitter, the decision reflects a real, and somewhat disturbing, current in German politics.

The backstory: Germany built up its gold reserves as the flip side of running trade surpluses in the decades after World War II. In practice, much of the world’s gold is stored in vaults underneath central banks: eighty feet below street level and hard against the bedrock of lower Manhattan at the New York Fed, in the ancient vaults of the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street in the City of London, and so on. This is highly convenient; when one government or central bank sells its gold to another, the precious metal can be rolled from one cage to the next, with none of the risk that comes with transporting it across oceans. (For more about the New York Fed’s gold storage operation, click here).

The system, of course, is built upon trust — that the New York Fed won’t suddenly be taken over by people with no respect for those nations’ property rights and seize it for their own use, and that the central banks won’t lie about how much gold is in their vaults. Among the world’s central bankers, that trust runs deep, and most governments are content to keep their gold wherever it is most convenient. The exceptions are governments that have reason to fear that their gold stocks could be frozen as part of a conflict, such as in Iran and Libya.

So what the heck is Germany doing? It is a nation with a deep-seated fears about the stability of its currency, no doubt in part the legacy of the Weimar hyperinflation of the early 1920s. The fixation on its gold comes at a time when the world of finance seems in chaos. Germans are being asked to help rescue Greece and other European nations with troubled finances.

The European Central Bank has bought bonds from some of those nations, which Germans widely view as tempting enormous inflation. Against that backdrop, it is perhaps not shocking that there is political resonance to the theory that the New York Fed and Banque de France may be putting one over on the Bundesbank and that some of Germany’s gold might actually be missing.

(This is, it should be noted, not solely a German fixation. There are plenty of Americans who are convinced that the U.S. gold reserves in Fort Knox are missing.)

So, essentially, the Bundesbank is offering a sop to the conspiracy theorists by relocating the gold to German soil. The nation just has to hope that nothing goes wrong during the journey.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/16/why-germany-wants-its-674-tons-of-gold-back/

We seem to have rather German worries about the Eurozone crisis, which I used to post about.  You really do need to read some better quality newspapers, Graeme.  

Hey, Graeme.  Headline in the New York Times (you really need to branch out from that Moncton paper and get some new perspectives).

"Timbuktu Gives France's President Ecstatic Welcome"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/world/africa/france-hollande-timbuktu-...

True, we the bad guys are likely lingering around not too far away.  But they made themselves and their brand of Islam pretty unpopular in Mali (a largely Muslim nation, but used to be a more tolerant brand).

What's the conspiracy theory here?  There has to be one, I'm sure you can find some evil malice on France's part (I suspect they went into Mali because they don't want a terrorist state so close to France).  

EO - I'm so happy you read the NYT.  Now, close your eyes really hard, and think of what you read.

Did the US actually say - "Come any time."

When the German auditors asked to see the gold, did the New York Reserve say,"delighted. We'll leave a key on the desk for you?.  Hint - what it said is a word that starts with N.

If the Germans are so anxious to get the gold back, why is it going to take seven years to do it? Think really hard about that.

But of course, big banks and governments would never do anything wrong. It's just wild rumour that illegal behaviour by banks sparked this recession and put the US taxpayers another hundred trillions into debt. And it can't possibly be true that a New York court found a British bank guilty of laundering at least tens of billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels and for Al Quaeda.

I know that story appeared in the NYT - but I just don't believe it's possible.

As to Mali, I'm sure it's just a coincidence that Mali has large gold deposits And it's just a coincidence that the US is now establishing military bases in almost every country in Africa, and it can't be true that our intervention in Libya (which is also pretty close to France) has created chaos and made that country a haven for jihadists.

Gee. If tthem there Jihadists ever got control of Mali, they could get rowboats to take them all the way to France and invade with all the US supplied weapons they've been gathering in the course of American blundering in Africa.

I mean, them rebels has weapons of mass destruction. What's a weapon of mass destruction - well it a thing like Israel and the US have in their nuclear weapons, many in nuclear subs, it's something like drones that kill without a whole lot of discrimination, it's the kinds of weapons that killed a million in Iraq - and nobody knows how many in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Mali,  Yemen, Somalia.

And you know what terrorism is? It's using those weapons against people who never attacked you.

And how do you get people to support this sort of random greed and slaughter. Well, you get them to hate. Right now, it's time to hate Moslems so it's okay to kill them.

Jews are useful for propaganda, too. After all, Hitler carried out a massive killing of Jews. So Israel must be upheld no matter what it does. Oddly, we have no such campaign to defend Romanys in Hungary. Hitler tried to exterminate them, too. And they are now persecuted savagely all over Europer. Where's the big campaign to help them? Well, Harper just announced we will not recognize the refugee status of Romanys. (Just like we refused to recognize the refugee status of Jews for years after World World Two.

I'm glad you're reading. But it's not enough to read. You have to think, too.

Incidentally, your Christian buddies in the US, France, and Britain among others, are supplying weapons, money and mercenaries for the "rebels" in Syria who are busily klling EO refugees.

Think.

Give me your source. I've heard nothing to verify your kooky ideas about that gold. I've heard nothing about seven years. And nothing about it being missing. Nothing at all. Give me a link or shut up with telling lies.
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I looked not just at NYT, but the Financial Times and the Washington Post and have found zero, zip, nothing to support your statements.
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You're not even reading the news about Mali. Mali IS a Muslim country and those Mali Muslims very happy to see the back of those people. Have you read how they were being treated?
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And changing the topic will get you nowhere. That's a favorite trick of yours. I want your source for your statements in the opening post.

I don't believe Western countries are currently supplying rebels in Syria with arms or "mercenaries" (whoever they are) at the moment.
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But I did read a disturbing story that the UK PM wants to "lift the arms embargo."
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That would be a mistake, I agree with you. Not that I am defending Assad. Plenty of bad stuff on both sides there.
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I believe the main source of funding for the rebels are the Gulf oil states. They are fighting a proxy war with Iran in Syria. The whole thing is very tragic.
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I'm entirely aware of the plight of the Christians in Syria. I've retired now and I follow the news closely.
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An important thing about reading sources is reading what isn't there. - and some of tne meaning of what is there.

Do you have a source which gives a US response to this request?  Have you noticed that reporting on it began to wither within a week of the first report?

Am I going to waste my time looking up sources for a woman who will not believe what she doesn't want to - and whe responds to me by calling me a liar? And who thinks that after forty years of a life heavily involving research I don't know as much about it as she does?

Google "German gold reserves" There you will find thousands of sources, many of them mentioning the points I have made. Look for what is said and think - about what is NOT said. And wonder why.

Note the pattern of how the number of sources dwindles sharply after the first week.

You will find sources citing the 20 years part. Think. Why twenty years?

You will find sources about the American refusal to let German auditors see the gold. Think.  Why? 

I'm glad you read the NYT. It has good book reviews, crossword puzzles. But learn something about journalism and the heavy biases of ALL commercial North American news media. Learn something about journalistic tricks of burying stories. Learn about the use of language to spread propaganda and hatred. Notice that a moslem who kills anybody is a terrorist. An American who kills hundreds from his office where he directs a drone is - well, he's a hero. Did you notice any North American news media that referred to the US massacre of a quarter million Maya natives as an act of terrorism?

You have a lot to learn about the nature of journalism and the use of sources before I will spend any time reading your rants or responding to them again.

And in the process, don't be so ready to call people liars because they don't agree with you.

In future, if you want to discuss a point, feel free. If you simply want to spout your bigotry, naivete and ignorance, skip it. I won't answer.

oh - on who is supplying the "rebels" in Syria. Much of the weaponry is American. It's coming from the mess that we have made of Libya where jihadists got hold of immense stocks of  US arms. (The US is far the largest exporter of weapons in the world.. I don't know what jihadists would do without them.)

As for money, it has been coming from the US and France and Britain as well as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states for years. They have also supplied intelligence.

And it's not a rebellion because there are rather few Syrians who are rebelling. Large numbers of them are mercenaries and jihadists from outside Syria. ( So why do our news media constantly refer to them as rebels? Why don't they call them what most of them are - invaders?  Think about that.  Seriously. Think.

Considering that, why did Israel launch air attacks against the Syrian government side and against Lebanon? Think a little bit.

Anyway - the game plan is the Netanyahu is going to get his war with Iran. For all the hype you reader in our press about the power of Iran, it has not the slightest chance of wining such a war. Their air force is ancient and their missiles outdated. The US and Canada will be forced to enter such a war.

In China, t his will be perceived, correctly, as an attack on Chinese interests.

What's shaping up is probably the worst crisis we have ever seen.

http://blog.austincoins.com/?p=10803 

(read "Portugals lost gold" in 1990 towards bottom of article)

OK.  Here's the FIRST reputable source.  There's a blizzard of conspiracy theories going.  Google means nothing.  I can find sites that tell me there's UFO's.  You must use some discretion.  

The New York Times reports that Germany has already checked all its overseas gold and found it is all there.  It has photos.  The quote I gave above was from The Washington Post.  First, an excerpt and the link, 

FRANKFURT — Nearly half of Germany’s gold reserves are held in a vault at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — billions of dollars worth of postwar geopolitical history squirreled away for safe keeping below the streets of Lower Manhattan.

Now you're telling me this a load of garbage.

caption from NYT

A German central bank employee with gold bars. Germany is repatriating much of the gold it keeps in New York and Paris.

Caption from NYT

Germany recently counted and tested all of the thousands of gold bars it keeps in foreign banks.

I can also find the same story in Financial Times of London, one of the most respected newspapers in the world.  

Germany creates pile of golden opportunities

Criminal masterminds and Hollywood scriptwriters have been put on notice. Germany’s central bank is planning to shift 54,000 gold bars worth €27bn from Paris and New York to its base in Frankfurt, one of the biggest publicly announced shipments of the precious metal on record.

Not to make it too easy for anyone planning a series of heists, the Bundesbank declined to say exactly how it would transport the gold, or exactly when.

But between now and 2020, all 374 tonnes of gold bars, each one weighing 12.5kg, stored at the Banque de France will have been moved – probably by truck – to their new home in the vaults below the Bundesbank’s grey 1960s office block in an unfashionable corner of Frankfurt.

Simultaneously, an operation will start to repatriate 300 tonnes of Germany’s 1,500 tonnes of gold on deposit at New York Federal Reserve, this time probably by aeroplane in small batches of 3-5 tonnes in order to be able to insure it, gold traders said.

It is the first time the Bundesbank has decided to tell the world that it is about to move lots of gold around ahead of time.

In doing so, it is following in the footsteps of some odd bedfellows, including Venezuela, Iran and Libya, who were typically trying to get ahead of possible asset seizures as a result of international sanctions.

But this is not the biggest gold movement ever by the Bundesbank. In 2000 and 2001 it decided to bring home 940 tonnes of gold bullion from the Bank of England to save money on the storage fees that the UK central bank levies, unlike its French and US counterparts. But the Bundesbank did so at a time when its gold holdings at foreign central banks were a closely guarded secret. That transportation only came to light late last year in a leaked report by federal auditors into the Bundesbank’s gold holdings.

The Bundesbank’s formal reason for the latest move is that it is catching up with history. The gold was never dispatched from German soil: the country emerged after the second world war with no gold and built up reserves through trade surpluses at the foreign central banks. Keeping the gold there as a foreign currency reserve made sense, if it ever needed to be converted.

Now that Paris shares the euro there is no reason to store gold in France, Carl-Ludwig Thiele, a Bundesbank board member, said. As for New York, the bank still wants to keep a significant stock there.

Mr Thiele denied the Bundesbank, which prides itself on its fierce independence, was bowing to public pressure following an outbreak of public angst about the safety of the bullion in foreign vaults. But, he conceded, “in Germany, a lot of emotion is attached to the topic of gold reserves”.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/480ff9cc-5ffd-11e2-b657-00144feab49a.html#axzz2Jyd7Cync

There have been ZERO stories about missing gold in the Financial Times.

And you think they're holding back and not telling the truth, correct?

Next, I decided to check German sources.  

This is Google Translate,  link is at the bottom

Gold treasure of the Bundesbank: 700 tons of gold to Frankfurt

The Bundesbank bows to public pressure that will eventually store half of their vast reserves in Germany.The bars that are to be brought back from New York and Paris, have a value of $ 27 billion.

Frankfurt - The Bundesbank good much of its gold reserves to Germany.About 700 tons are to be brought to and from New York and Paris to Frankfurt. "We will begin this year and end no later than in 2020," Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele said on Wednesday. Thus, the central bank responds to the increased public pressure.

"We want to build trust," said Thiele. Goal from 2020 was kept half of the German gold reserves in own vaults in Germany. The bars, which are brought from abroad, according to current prices together about 27 billion euros worth.

Currently outsourced most of the billions of treasure abroad, mostly in the U.S. Federal Reserve. The ingots were mainly in the fifties and sixties transferred as payment of high German trade surpluses in the ownership of the Deutsche Bundesbank.

Germany has the second largest hoard of gold in the world

In the fall, a public debate about the safety of the German gold was ablaze. The Federal Court had "given the high value of the stored at foreign central banks gold holdings and the fact that they were never recorded," required periodic sampling . Individual politicians feared that the monetary authorities had given the control of the German gold from the hand.

Germany has today to the USA's second largest gold treasure in the world - with a market value of 137.5 billion euros. Currently, 31 percent of the gold in Germany and almost half in vaults of Fed store in New York.

This share is expected to decline in the coming years to 37 percent. To achieve this goal, gradually some 300 tons are taken from New York to Frankfurt. The 374 tonnes that are currently held by the Banque de France in Paris to come to Germany. London continues to be something more than a tenth of the gold remain stored.

Wants to get the entire pot of gold to Germany the German Bundesbank still not. The Fed wants to keep the option of the gold in the event of a currency crisis quickly convert into foreign currency such as the dollar.

For detailed schedule and the mode of transportation is wanted Thiele not comment for security reasons. The costs are in proportion to the value of gold "manageable, so we say that is economically viable for the federal bench." A concrete figure on the costs did not name Thiele.

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/bundesbank-holt-700-tonnen-gold-aus-new-york-und-paris-nach-frankfurt-a-877931.html

There have been ZERO stories in Der Spiegel about missing gold.  

And this too is unacceptable to you?

If you advised your students to believe every single they read without any regard to the quality of the source, then that is very strange to me.

The reputable sources seems to saying that the Germans already inspected all the gold.

Nor have the stories dropped off.  There are several at the German sources and at the FInancial Times.  NYT has not covered it since, because it is not primarily a financial paper nor is Germany its primary topic.

I am not going argue with a conspiracy theorist.  I present the information.  I have provided a number of links.  Anyone who wants more from the Financial Times, which requires a subscription, can leave a post here.  

Readers may draw their own conclusions based on their propensity to believe random stuff they find on the internet.

Good. that is a reasonable post i can respond to.

Incidentally, I never told anybody to believe all the sources they read, regardless of quality. I did tell them to ask questions about what they read - no matter what the source. (And, by the way, the Financial Times, though sometimes good, is not an impeccable source.

You may well be right. But ask these questions--

1. Why will it take seven years to move the gold? They can do 3 tons at a time - by air. That means some 200 flights. So why is it seven years? 

2. Why did US authorities initially refuse to allow the Germans to audit the gold? The sources for that are pretty strong.

3. What would the consquences for the western economies have been if the auditors had said some of the gold was missing?

4. The drop in coverage of the story can scarcely have much to do with the fact that this is a financial story - because it isn't just a financial story.

5. There have been ZERO stories in Der Spiegel about the gold not being there? So? You are presuming that because Der Spiegel says nothing about something, then it couldn't have happened? I would be cautious in saying that about any newspaper in the world.

6. The development of the Euro as a currency has made it necessary to have gold available in case of a currency crisis?

The Euro has been around quite a while so foreign storage isn't necessary?. Why move the gold so late from Paris? And why at a time when the euro faces British and possibly Greek withdrawal? And possibly others?

7. You quote conflicting reports. Some say the German government was responding to public pressure. Some say it wasn't.

8. Contrary to belief, the world operates largely on conspiracies, and the news media - even the best of them - cover for the conspiracies. For example, almost none of the British news media have covered the very recent revelation that the British after the second world war and in its dying days of Empire, enslaved over a million people in Kenya, practiced widespread torture of thousands, gang rape, gang sodomy, plundering of resources, allowed most of the children to die, jailed or executed thousands with no process of law..... (The Guardian carried it.)

9. Now. Think. What would happen to the western economies if the German auditors had reported some of the gold missing? Would that explain why it will take seven years to move it?

On the basis of the sources I have so far, including yours, I don't see a closed case.

You may well be right. I profoundly hope you are.

Time will tell.  

By the way, the major newspapers never use the word "terrorist".  They use "militant".  And "rebel" for the ones in Syria.  It's just a blanket policy.   I must agree that the so-called rebels are hardly worthy of the name, many of them at this point anyway.  But the papers have policies about word use.  I know that and take it with a grain of salt.  The big papers also have lots of pictures.  The destruction in Syria is terrible.  It's a heart-breaking story.

I think NYT would jump on a story about missing gold.  That's just based on my reading of them for several years.   I don't know why it is taking so long.  I could read more on the German sources, but I have lots of other things to do (among them, trying to learn to read German itself). 

Learning to read German! Harder by far than French, although there's overlap in the simple words. But reading it well enough to follow stories about economics will take some time.
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Why don't you read NYT yourself? It's only $15/month. You could blog about it instead of that Moncton paper. I think you'd find it much more liberal than you think. They've often run stories about problems with fracking, for example.
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But the crossword is not in the basic package!
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Der Spiegel has an English where they translate some of their articles. It's free. They trend pretty liberal too.
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FT is more expensive. I got it to follow the Euro crisis. I think the Germans are worried the Eurozone might collapse. It's still muddling along, but Italy, Spain and Greece are in bad shape. Especially Greece. Comparisons to the Great Depression are heard.
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Forests are being stripped because people can't afford heating oil.
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The argument about how to fix it rages on. The comments at FT are interesting. There's no agreement.

Gosh folks there's too much to read here! I've been googling the German gold story  . The stories I'm reading ( lots of them) seem to all be  asking why would it take 7 years to ship the gold from the U.S. to Germany?

Is it going by horse and wagon on land and then  on the backs of dolphins across the ocean?  Seriously there is a lot of speculation in financial circles that something is definitely wrong. I can't post all my info. ( its way too much). I'll just post this video.

Jan 25, 2013 David Morgan from The Silver Report chats with Cambridge House Live anchor Bridgitte Anderson about silver, gold and the global economy. Taped at Cambridge House International's Vancouver Resource Investment Conference in January 2013.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tufG0D_lxQs

Another article of interest:

Oct. 2012

In any event, it looks like Bundesbank officials will soon be visiting the Fed's vault, which is located 80 feet below street level and 50 feet below sea level. The vault is accessible only by elevators controlled by an operator in a remote location. I've been told by a source that the elevator operator is actually not in New York City at all, although I can't confirm this and the Fed won't discuss this sort of thing.

Down in the vault there are 122 compartments assigned to depositing countries and international organizations. Smaller gold depositing countries get shelves in shared library compartments.

The compartments do not have labels reading "Germany's gold" and so on. They are instead numbered, and only a few people at the Fed know what numbers correspond to which country. The Fed says it does this to protect the privacy of the depositors. But this also makes actual inspection less reliable.

There's no way for Germany to know that the gold it is being shown is Germany's, as opposed to some other depositor's. In an extreme case—which I have no reason to believe is true—miscreants at the Fed could just show everyone who came to visit the same pile of gold.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49540593/The_Germans_Are_Coming_for_Their_Gold

Here's more "stuff" to read. Its all over the net. I'm not saying its true because it sounds almost too foolish. .......???

Quotes:

Also interesting to note is that barely 3 days after the arrest of Strauss-Kahn, Congressman Paul made a new call for the US to sell its gold reserves by stating: "Given the high price it is now, and the tremendous debt problem we now have, by all means, sell at the peak".

Interesting to note about all of these events is that one of the United States top Congressman, and 2012 Presidential candidate, Ron Paul has long stated his belief that the US government has lied about its gold reserves held at Fort Knox. So concerned had Congressman Paul become about the US government and the Federal Reserve hiding the truth about American gold reserves he put forward a bill in late 2010 to force an audit of them, but which was subsequently defeated by Obama regime forces.

When directly asked by reporters if he believed there was no gold in Fort Knox or the Federal Reserve, Congressman Paul gave the incredible reply, “I think it is a possibility.” Bizarre reports emanating from the US for years, however, suggest there is no gold to sell, and as we can read as posted in 2009 on the ViewZone.Com news site:

“In October of 2009 the Chinese received a shipment of gold bars. Gold is regularly exchanges between countries to pay debts and to settle the so-called balance of trade. Most gold is exchanged and stored in vaults under the supervision of a special organization based in London, the London Bullion Market Association (or LBMA).

When the shipment was received, the Chinese government asked that special tests be performed to guarantee the purity and weight of the gold bars. In this test, four small holed are drilled into the gold bars and the metal is then analyzed. Officials were shocked to learn that the bars were fake. They contained cores of tungsten with only a outer coating of real gold.

What’s more, these gold bars, containing serial numbers for tracking, originated in the US and had been stored in Fort Knox for years. There were reportedly between 5,600 to 5,700 bars, weighing 400 oz. each, in the shipment!”

The American peoples ability to know the truth of these things, and as always, has been shouted out by their propaganda media organs leaving them in danger of not being prepared for the horrific economic collapse of their nation now believed will much sooner than later.

http://www.eutimes.net/2011/05/russia-says-imf-chief-jailed-for-discover...

Sorry....this looks like a blog....I'm a hog....but...what about these stories too?

Crazy stuff?

World Trade Center

It would seem that at least the better part of a billion dollars worth of precious metals went missing. (It is not plausible, of course, that whatever destroyed the towers vaporized gold and silver, which are dense, inert metals that are extremely unlikely to participate in chemical reactions with other materials.)

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/gold.html

However, Comex was reported to have at least $950 million worth of gold stored in its vault under the Center, and the fate of that haul remains unknown.

http://911review.com/motive/gold.html

Oh yes...here's the latest and I'm outta here.......:)

Afghan gold
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/world/asia/as-gold-is-spirited-out-of-...

conspiracy theory alert!

When we have elected officials, refusing to answer real questions AND be accountable to the american/canadian people, then yes, conspiracy theories will abound.

It's got so bad, that even those that may be doing harm, only have to shout "conspiracy theory" to remove auditors and checkpoints from their midst by confusing the public as to what to believe anymore.

Graeme, I will try to find time soon to address your points one at a time. But as you once said, I have retired but I am busier than ever.
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Stand by.

So here's an ignorant question (as in "don't know"). The USA is trillions of dollars in debt, Greece, Italy, Spain and others face economic collapse, yet they all sit on huge deposits of pure gold in their vaults. (the USA having the largest). I realize that gold reserves offer collateral for bonds and securing loans for future investments BUT if you are irresponsible with your investments AND you have assets to cover them....why are you allowed to just print up some more money? Why is the country that gave the loan (or whoever) not allowed to ask for the collateral they used if they are not being paid? The price of Gold would probably take a dive, but right now gold is worth around $1600/oz. Why is it not being used to pay off debts? Is it essential to keep the gold while continuing to plummet into further debt?

It only makes sense that it would take 7 years to move that much gold- securely anyway. Yes, they could 3 tons at a time. The short answer is that it's just way tooooooo many eggs for one basket.
Spreading the move out over 7 years gives them flexibility to move small amounts, sporadically, and unpredictably. "We might move a couple of bars next week; or not"
And don't forget, just because they say 7 years, doesn't mean they actually plan on 7 years.

Conspiracy theories aside, the security requirements are going to pretty tricky.

It's a complex story with a long history. The Afghan story has no connection with the German story. Afghanistan gold is likely leaving as people fear it will fall into civil war after NATO leaves, as happened after the Soviets pulled out.
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I notice you are quoting from a site called 9-11 Research. I looked at it quickly and IMO it is a classic conspiracy site, it's main purpose being to suggest we don't know the truth about 9/11.
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I would not trust them at all.
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Graeme had mentioned that the Germans and others are worried about reporting a possible loss of this gold because it would destabilize the Western world's economy.
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But as one who has been following the financial press for a number of years, I find this hard to believe. The financial press does not exist for the sake of govts but for investors, who are its readership. Thus they have no motive to cover things up. Investors want to know! There are huge sums at stake and they read these papers to get at the truth as far as it can be determined.
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When the US economy crashed in 2008, it was covered extensively. All sorts of things that would embarrass govts, banks, businesses, politicians was reported in massive detail. Remember: investors want to know!
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The economy has still not recovered and arguments rage about it, about what should be done.
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When the Euro crisis began (fallout from the 2008 crash), again all the financial press gave it massive coverage, even though no govt in Europe was spared embarrassment. It is also still going on.
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So the pattern I have seen suggests that these papers would leap on a story about missing gold like a flea on a dog. It's their bread and butter, to give investors as much accurate information as possible. They would have no motive to cover it up and every motive to report it.

Arguments about this rage daily in the financial press (most of which require subscription fees unfortunately). There the followers of John Maynard Keynes, who say print money in a depression, save in boom times (see Paul Krugman at NYT as one of the most prominent). You can read 10 articles free per month there.
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But others totally disagree. It will cause inflation, they say (it will, but Krugman says it won't cause much). Investors and wealthy people hate inflation because it reduces the value of their wealth.
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Balance the budget, they say. It's called "austerity". It's what they're doing in the Eurozone crisis, where Germany is the biggest player. It's having a devastating effect on Italy, Spain and Greece, where conditions are getting like the Great Depression.
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Krugman and the Keynesians say Europe is doing it all wrong.
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There are whole libraries in written on the topic. I'm very far from being an expert so I'll leave it there.

Can we start expecting e-mails from Bavarian Princes now?

You know the kind, they have tonnes of gold to move and it is going to take forever and the bankers will slap them with hideous interest charges for taking the bars away but . . . .

If we give them our banking information they will happily give us several gold bars, if we cooperate with the transfer.

So here's the top 5 countries that the US owes monies to. #5 Brazil #4 United Kingdom #3 Japan #2 China and the #1 debt is owed to investers within the USA themselves. Surprisingly the little country of Luxembourg is #10.

Surprisingly not many owe the USA anything..... Makes me want to ask can you topple foreign govt's by not paying them back?

Thanks EO and all

I come here for my entertainment .....its a blast.....not funny.... but I think it is. The  Fort Knox missing gold theory has been going on since awhile.

Come on in sinatra.....

Welcome to the ONE.....the ONLY.....WonderCafe.....it sure does make one wonder!

I do the blog on a local paper because I can  use it to show people how to read a newspaper - and how it often lies or spreads prejudice.

There's a reason, for example, why our paper call the invaders of Syria rebels. It gives them a sort of legitimacy. In the same way, all North American news media of the period right after the Korean war referred to veterans as 'heroes' - always.

No North American news medium, to my knowledge, has ever referred to Obama as a terrorist or extremist. In fact, he is both. In the same way, islamic fundamentalists are routinely called extremist. But the most extreme fuindamentalist of the lot is NEVER called and extremist - the King of Saudi Arabia.

News media become tools of propaganda. The NYT is not an exception. It's far better than most. But most are pretty awful. The result is that you always have to think about what you read.

That, of course, leads to the conspiracy freaks. But they are not worse than the true believer freaks. The reality is that our world is full of conspiracies at every level.

Does is make sense to transport the German gold over seven years. Possibly. It could also make sense to give the US seven years to come up with it. Did the German auditors see the gold? Possibly. It's also possible that telling the truth might have been disastrous.

Was General Petraeus fired for having an affair? possible. But then we have to believe that the leader of the world largest and most sophisticated intelligence agency had an almost public affair, and sent love posts to her on her computer.

And she, a very bright woman, and a lt. Colonel in the intelligence service was so stupid as to send threatening posts to another woman.

Maybe. Or maybe this was a way to get rid of Petraeus. The military-industrial complex in the US has enormous power. Petraeus was a leading and popular figure in it. Maybe he had become a threat.

It's far-fetched? Well, the official story is pretty far-fetched.

Would the CIA lead the killing of a quarter million helpless and innocent people in Guatemala? Did it bury whole villages of men, women and children in mass graves? Absurd. But it did happen. And the NYT said so. But it never followed the story up. And nobody else touched it at all. Gee. What does that suggest?

We have to recognize that humans, even those on our side, are capable of stunning acts of evil. But the news media generally won't mention if it was on our side. They will, however, choose words to suggest the other side does it all the time?

The BBC will be releasing a documentary on the royal family soon. It seems they have a long habit of disposing of any of their offspring who are mentally unstable,, physical freaks, that sort of thing. So they are sent off to some place in the country with high walls and locked doors. Nobody in the family ever visits or attends their funerals.  I'll have to check. but I believe the story is in The Guardian - which is a pretty good paper.

Isn't is lovely about Harry and Kate and their baby.?That kid better be born healthy.

Woud the RCMP spy on you? Is this a police state? Well, they spied on Tommy Douglas and Northrop Frye.  Suspicious character Frye. He was oppposed to the Vietnam War. Probably a commie.

 Graeme, funny you should mention the royal family. I watched a special the other day about the Queens mother in law. Wow, what a life, and yes she was locked away for about 5 years because she heard God speaking to her. Her children were taken away and she later became a nun. Very interesting story and before I saw the documentary I didn't even consider  that Prince Philip even had a mother that was living throughout the Queens reign We always heard about the Queens "Mum"..

Speaking of conspiracies, I tried to follow Waterfall's link and the page had been pulled. I wonder why?

I am perfectly well aware of the use of such terms as rebels, militants, etc.  I always factor that in.  I'm not nearly as stupid as you seem to think.  I don't see the word hero much at NYT.   They are not  big on war or drone strikes and their editorials often write about it.

NYT is not a propoganda booster for the US.  That is really unfair.  

I cannot deal with you keeping changing the subject.  How can I carry on a discussion if you keep talking about unrelated things?   Did you never tell your students to how to write something that was about a particular subject without dragging in Mayans and the royal family?   

You can discuss other things elsewhere.  I will only talk about the gold here.  

The Guardian did report it:  

The Bundesbank has announced today that it will move a significant chunk of its gold reserves - around 674 tonnes of the stuff - back to Germany.

The plan will see Germany empty its section of the vaults at the Banque de Paris, where 374 tonnes of ingots currently sit gathering dust. Another 300 tonnes will be recovered from the Federal Reserve.

This is the official explanation:

------------------------------

The withdrawal of the reserves from the storage location in Paris reflects the change in the framework conditions since the introduction of the euro.

Given that France, like Germany, also has the euro as its national currency, the Bundesbank is no longer dependent on Paris as a financial centre in which to exchange gold for an international reserve currency should the need arise.

As capacity has now become available in the Bundesbank’s own vaults in Germany, the gold stocks can now be relocated from Paris to Frankfurt.

-------------------------------

Unofficially, the end of the Cold War means that Germany now sees no need to keep its treasure well away from Russia. There's also an argument that Berlin wants its gold close to hand in case the financial crisis flares up again (The Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has dubbed it a watershed moment).

The real conspiracy theory is that the gold doesn't even exist at all.

Anyway, the operation will last seven years, and here's the plan:

Frankfurt: holds 31% of Germany's gold today, rising to 50% in 2020

New York: 45% today, 37% by 2020

London: 13% today, 13% in 2020

Paris: 11% today, none by 2020

And you can read the full briefing from the Bundesbank, in German,here (pdf).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/16/eurozone-crisis-growth-forecasts-car-sales#block-50f6bb5e95cb5d055131b563

It's part way down.  

Even they're talking about conspiracy theories.

The reasoning is, as you noted, contradictory in various reports.  My guess is they are responding to public opinion.  The German public is extremely upset about the idea that they may end up on the hook for bad Greek, Spanish and Italian debts.  

 Btw, The Guardian is going broke because they won't charge fees.

The Guardian link on conspiracies is to the Financial Times.  I'll try to format their piece.

Date, Oct 2012 (the other pieces above were all from mid-January 2013).  It is from before the inspection took place.

Counting das Gold at Fort Knox

Germany wants to audit its gold held abroad. Paranoia or sensible book keeping? To be fair, there’s quite a bit of it (feel free to read that any way you choose). From the Spiegel:

Germany has the second largest gold reserves in the world, nearly 3400 tons. Supposedly, anyway. Because stocks have never been checked for authenticity and weight. Now, the Federal Court has asked the Bundesbank to examine the gold reserves abroad regularly.

 

And from Eurointelligence (with our emphasis):

The Bundesbank duly counted and weighed all the 82857 gold bars stored in Frankfurt, some 1100 tons. MPs were even allowed in the cellar to see if the gold is still there. In an ultimate act of desperation, the Bundesbank is even considering to let journalists inside the vaults. The problem is only that the gold held outside Germany has not been audited. There are no official figures, but Suddeutsche estimates about 1500 tonnes are held by the Fed, and about 800 tonnes by the central banks of England and France. The total value is some €133bn. The court of auditors has now demanded regular audits of Germany’s foreign gold reserves. The last audits from New York were from 1979/1980. The Bundesbank has since been let into the vault, but not allowed to open the boxes in which the bars are stored, something that has obviously stokes suspicions.

 

The Bundesbank has released the court of auditors statement, with several parts being blacked out, presumably given the continued official secrecy about the location of Germany’s gold reserves. The Bundesbank insisted that there is no doubt about the integrity of the foreign depots warning that the doubt itself could have considerable political implications. As a sign of goodwill, Suddeutsche writes, the Bundesbank wants to repatriate 50[metric] tons from abroad, melt it and test the quality.

 

In an editorial, Suddeutsche writes that the gates should be opened for inspections. (yes, no kidding!).

 

Maybe they’ll just Chavez the stuff? (If it’s even there, obvs.)

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2012/10/23/1224511/counting-das-gold-at-fort-knox/

Item, gold is the same word in English and German.

I can't think of anything else to say on the topic.

I am suddenly reminded of that nice song in Fidelio, Hat man nicht auch Gold beineben.

So much for my attempt to embed the vid.  The regular embed code does not work on these posts.

Here's the link, http://youtu.be/K5aW0hoh_As

Even that does not provide a link you can click on.  Sorry.

Let me try again.

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I entered the embed code in plain text but it's not working.

graeme

I made a new thread about Princess Alice, Prince Philip's mother. It is on the Passionate Eye doc. which you can watch on the link I provided , 43 min. Great story and lots of surprises.

I'm seeing gold bars.....oh such pretty golden pictures I found on the net! See the link.

I've been googling gold all day like EO, so many stories.....laugh or cry.....?....its pretty funny. I'm convinced some U.S. Fed. Reserve gold is missing  and they will have to sneak and replenish it to pay back Germany. Germany knows this. They don't mind as long as they get it back eventually . Hopefully other countries won't follow suit and demand their gold back................yikes!

  According to the net regarding gold  shipments to Germany via aeroplane the Security  Ins. only covers 3-5 tons at a time which is why it will take 7 years. Some people  comments are saying this is BS. Oh well.......

Pics. of gold bars...so pretty!

http://demonocracy.info/infographics/world/gold/gold.html

(This is so funny....!!! what's all the fuss about then...its not money?)

Chairman Ben Bernanke of the Fed. Reserve tells Ron Paul that Gold is only held as a tradition and that Gold is not money.

“Why do central banks hold it, if it’s not money?” Paul asked.

“Why do they hold diamonds?”

“Well, it’s tradition,” Bernanke answered. “Long term tradition.”

Ron Paul video:

Edit - fixing the link

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/07/ron-paul-why-do-central-banks-...

Here's more articles I've been reading. I'll provide a link and the source on request.

Meanwhile, Keith Barron, a geologist and consultant responsible for one of the largest gold discoveries in 25 years, recently told King World News:

"I believe that most of the Western world's gold, which is supposed to be in central bank vaults, has been leased out. Much of it is now in private hands in India, and what remains continues going East to China and other Asian vaults.

So most of the Western gold has vanished from the vaults and it's now just a book entry. These various Western countries and bullion banks simply roll these leases over when they come due, and the gold never gets returned back to the countries. So it's very interesting to see what's going on. Obviously the trust is breaking down in the system.

" While some could easily dismiss Germany's behavior as that of a distrustful state, there's precedent for Barron's claims.

Back in the mid-1920s, the head of the German Central Bank, Herr Hjalmar Schacht, went to New York to see Germany’s gold. However the NY Fed officials were unable to find the palette of Germany’s gold bullion.

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Benjamin Strong was mortified, but to put him at ease Herr Schacht turned to him and said “Never mind, I believe you when you when you say the gold is there. Even if it weren’t you are good for its replacement.”

...............................................................................................................................

A general suspicion exists that not all Central Banks have the gold they claim – that they have in fact lent it out over and over and can’t get it back in a hurry. They may not even be too sure who the legal owners are, at this point.

The West’s invasion of Libya may have been for the purpose of stealing its store of bullion; and the current threats to Iran, Syria and Mali may be to grab their CBs’ gold. (Mali has some major gold-mines, I’m told.) If there is any truth in that belief, then The US and France might well have to scramble to get gold to satisfy the German demands. Then, we might see a struggle in the gold markets between the Central Banks (holding the price down) and the private speculators (driving the price up). They do not divulge the source of this so I don’t know what it is worth.

Forbes staff Interesting points.

Specifically on all the gold being claimed not actually being out there, I’ve read several times that the total amount of paper gold (i.e. gold traded on exchanges like COMEX and among those in the LBMA) exceeds physical gold by a ratio of something like 100 to 1.

Now that makes sense to a certain extent, as selling futures essentially means trading future deliveries, combined with the fact that a big chunk of this trading is speculative (i.e. the gold isn’t actually delivered).

This isn’t a conspiracy, it’s how this market works. If all traded gold was claimed at the same time, the market would go bust. Central banks supposedly hold physical gold, either in their vaults or someone else’s (NY Fed, Banque de France, etc). If they happened not to have the gold and had to come to market to buy it, they’d have a hard time getting a good price.

Graeme, I have mentioned this before but you have not noticed it. I do not know if my sight is poor or what but I find virtually impossible to read your posts because there are no blanks between the paragraphs. Other people do this too and I never read them because I cannot.
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I can read a bit of it, but I keep losing my place. I just get frustrated and quit or just skim them, and that's not good.
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Is it too much to ask for paragraphs with blank lines between them?

graeme

I've copied your post for EO adding paragraphs via clicking "enter".  When I post my own  I have to post twice because paragraphs don't show up the first time.... its like yours is above. I have to click "edit" to make paragraphs which I'll do now posting yours over again so you can see it.

EO...I'm trying to look after graeme.....its not easy...:(

I do the blog on a local paper because I can use it to show people how to read a newspaper - and how it often lies or spreads prejudice. (Click enter)

There's a reason, for example, why our paper call the invaders of Syria rebels. It gives them a sort of legitimacy. In the same way, all North American news media of the period right after the Korean war referred to veterans as 'heroes' - always. (click enter)

No North American news medium, to my knowledge, has ever referred to Obama as a terrorist or extremist. In fact, he is both. In the same way, islamic fundamentalists are routinely called extremist. But the most extreme fuindamentalist of the lot is NEVER called and extremist - the King of Saudi Arabia. (click enter)

News media become tools of propaganda. The NYT is not an exception. It's far better than most. But most are pretty awful. The result is that you always have to think about what you read. (click enter)

That, of course, leads to the conspiracy freaks. But they are not worse than the true believer freaks. The reality is that our world is full of conspiracies at every level. (click enter) Does is make sense to transport the German gold over seven years. Possibly. It could also make sense to give the US seven years to come up with it. Did the German auditors see the gold? Possibly. It's also possible that telling the truth might have been disastrous.

( click enter)

Was General Petraeus fired for having an affair? possible. But then we have to believe that the leader of the world largest and most sophisticated intelligence agency had an almost public affair, and sent love posts to her on her computer. (click enter)

And she, a very bright woman, and a lt. Colonel in the intelligence service was so stupid as to send threatening posts to another woman. ( click enter)

Maybe. Or maybe this was a way to get rid of Petraeus. The military-industrial complex in the US has enormous power. Petraeus was a leading and popular figure in it. Maybe he had become a threat. (click enter)

It's far-fetched? Well, the official story is pretty far-fetched. (click enter)

Would the CIA lead the killing of a quarter million helpless and innocent people in Guatemala? Did it bury whole villages of men, women and children in mass graves? Absurd. But it did happen. And the NYT said so. But it never followed the story up. And nobody else touched it at all. Gee. What does that suggest? (click enter)

We have to recognize that humans, even those on our side, are capable of stunning acts of evil. But the news media generally won't mention if it was on our side. They will, however, choose words to suggest the other side does it all the time? (click enter)

The BBC will be releasing a documentary on the royal family soon. It seems they have a long habit of disposing of any of their offspring who are mentally unstable,, physical freaks, that sort of thing. So they are sent off to some place in the country with high walls and locked doors. Nobody in the family ever visits or attends their funerals. I'll have to check. but I believe the story is in The Guardian - which is a pretty good paper. (click enter)

Isn't is lovely about Harry and Kate and their baby.?That kid better be born healthy. (click enter) Woud the RCMP spy on you? Is this a police state? Well, they spied on Tommy Douglas and Northrop Frye. Suspicious character Frye. He was oppposed to the Vietnam War. Probably a commie.

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P.S. from Stardust : I copy/paste  the original to my email before posting it here and all the paragraphs were in it as above. So....perhaps it is the WC format that isn't working properly for graeme which is my problem too.

graeme: Note that I have typed "click enter"...lol..to make  spaces/paragraphs. It is hard to read with no spaces. I had to click enter twice.....to get paragraphs...Good Luck!

EO, you don't discuss. You hand down pronouncements like the pople. For example - the NYT is not biased. Any evidence given? Nope. EO says so. That's it.

You have never seen the word hero reoutinely in the press? Please learn to read. I did not not say it was happening now. I said it happened for a short time after the Korean War.

EO - none or your discussion, for all the footnotes, has anything to do with what is happening in the world. The war on terrorism has nothing to do with terrorism. The movement of money has nothing to do with anything as simple as bank withdrawals or deposits. Understanding the news has nothing to do with cloesly following the news media. Footnotes have nothing to do with truth; they simply tell where information comes from. I can give you thousands of footnotes (from "excxellent") sources on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Remember those?

You understand world events - and local ones - not from the news, but from an understanding of how people behave ( without regard for religion or brutality or fanaticism or any of that other bilge the news media concentrate on.) And anyone who trust the financial news is simply naive. It's a biased and, yes, corrupt, as any other news.

You need to develop an understanding of how people behave. Obama is noto fundamentally different from the President of iran in his behaviour. The only difference is that obama is less influential in dealing with American affairs than the president of Is in dealing with Iranian matter. Harper does not act very differently from any big-time gangster - and the same is true of most of Canada's business leaders.

Noticed the lazy press attitude to Idle No More, the abundance of leaks and rumours. the vicious campaign that began with the Sun Media? Well, you're not likely to learn about  that by reading the news media.

But if you know that the oil and other extraction industries are fun by people with power - and that people with power often behave like gangsters - then it might dawn on you that they need to get the whole concept of First Nations out of the way. You think they wouldn't do such a thing? Check out the history of Congo, Niger, South Africa, most of Central America... They will torture. They will kill. They will pollute. They will impose stavation. It's happened for centuries. It's happening right now. That is the reality of what people are. The news is, commonly not reality but an escape from it.

Your arrogance is boundless.
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Anyway, I've said all I am going to say. I cannot aspire to your level of genius.
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Thanks Stardust, for the effort, but I did not get to it before Graeme's scolding (sans paragraph breaks). Thanks for being so considerate, Graeme.
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I think I need reading glasses perhaps, I simply cannot follow long unbroken text. Usually if you're near-sighted as I am you do not need glasses for close work even as you get older. But I'm noticing it more and more since I got the iPad. It's only a few inches away and I'm having trouble on other sites that others can manage.
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I don't why you want to "look after" such an unpleasant man, but he's all yours!

EO.....

LOL.......

I posted an example (of graeme's post ) above   showing  graeme how to click "edit" perhaps after he has posted  ( I have to click edit) if the post has no paragraphs.

  Then after that  how to click "enter" after so many lines to make a new paragraph and  to leave spaces.

  I don't think he understood what I was saying.

Kimmio posts  the same as graeme, no paragraphs. People have told her they can't read her posts.

( I use my mouse to point along the lines as I read, old puter.)