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-- Posted Monday, 25 April 2005 | Digg This Article
"One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potatoes, Four" 25 April 2005 How many of you have ever done an inventory? Raise your hands. Yes, I see, most of you. Did you submit an inventory from five years ago or create a new one? It's a pretty sure thing that your boss would have expected you would do another one, right from scratch. I know as a Coast Guard Storekeeper I had to count each resistor, capacitor, and soldering gun, noting the count, its unit price, inventory date, extend the calculations, and note the results on each inventory card. Following that I would tally the value from each inventory card and arrive at the total value of my electronics inventory. Completing that task I would then submit my report to the commanding officer who would submit it to the district where it would be integrated with similar inventories and submitted to the CG Commandant. No big deal. Well, it WAS a big deal, a real BIG deal if the district supply officer paid me a visit for a day, auditing my work. He could have cared less what was written on my "official" inventory report. He would have been accountable for any errors made by one of his storekeepers. He was not going to let that happen; hence he'd come down and check things out himself. When commands change, the new commanding officer signs-off on everything before he will assume his new command. Weapons, commissary stores, general supplies, vehicles....everything is inventoried and accounted for before he'll put his name on the dotted line. This is called accountability. When the supply officer appends his signature attesting to the accuracy of the inventories, he's off to the pokey should glaring shortages appear later. Why can't our Treasury Department accomplish the same thing for our gold reserves? Why is our Treasury let off the hook by flaunting some audit by Urbach, Kahn & Werlin who's never seen the physical gold nor can physically substantiate where it's physically stored? This "prestigious" accounting firm simply audits the reports furnished to them! By doing so they are accepting at good faith what Treasury and Mint tell them. All within the bounds of "Federally Acceptable Accounting Standards", of course. Auditing the paper does nothing for full disclosure and transparency for the American people. What is called for is a congressionally-supervised physical audit of each gold bar and coin stated to be on account of the US Treasury. I don't care if it's in Fort Knox, West Point, or Timbuktu, see it, and count it! If it's co-mingled with other countries' gold, separate it, tag it, and stored it as allocated Treasury gold, exclusively. Furthermore, why the disclaimer in the Treasury report that the audit "does not include Treasury gold held by the Federal Reserve Banks?" Why not? That gold belongs to the American people, too, doesn't it? That gold is what your ancestors surrendered in the Great Gold Grab of 1934. Just as bad, the audit doesn't even distinguish the amount of silver from the gold - just one big round number. We used up the last of our silver last year, didn't we? The 2004 Treasury Audit should be interesting. The big question then is - - why are those shouting "Gold Conspiracy! Gold Conspiracy!" not going for the jugular? Goodness, manipulation could go on for decades if you don't know the amount of ammo in their, er, our vaults. Manipulation, without the "beef" is just speculation. The buck stops right with the House Committee on Financial Services, chaired by your friend, Chairman Michael Oxley of Ohio. This Committee has oversight for everything financial - even the SEC, and it's grandchild, the CFTC. The full committee list can be found here. Ron Paul is a member of this important committee, and I know he's sponsored legislation for an gold audit in the past. Have our senses of demanding accountability been so dulled and mis-directed by chasing manipulation theories that we stumble over fallen trees while lost in the woods? If we're going to shout, wail, wring our hands, bemoan our plight, and tut, tut our way along we're surely never to get our message across. Maybe we're not as influential as we give ourselves credit for. Where an informed citizenry can help themselves is with righteous indignation directed at a negligent congressman heading up an incompetent committee whose collaboration with the parties it's elected to supervise, is causing grave harm to America's financial integrity. Let's not let Treasury's obfuscation of a truthful inventory become another Enron under the accounting supervision of Urbach, Kahn, and Werlin. Just because Ken Lay's on the loose, doesn't mean the American people will let John Snow sail off into the sunset without taking their pound of flesh. No more screaming, desk pounding or hand-wringing please, just a sensible program that all America can grab onto and help themselves, their families, and their descendants. Thank you for your time. - - Charleston Voice
-- Posted Monday, 25 April 2005 | Digg This Article
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