If we do not do what our duty tells us must be done, we will live in odium in the history of our progeny and our posterity... John Maxwell (Struggle For the Future; Jamaica Observer - Kingston, Jan 9, 2005)

We know The Gold Cartel is in trouble. Whenever their available gold supply used to suppress the price has run way down, they rally their spokesmen to beat the drums for the IMF to sell gold to aid the poor. We have seen this modus operandi many times over the years.

The latest developments in this world sham/disgrace, which represents one of the most egregious examples of elitist hypocrisy of all time:

January 17

By Lynn Bolin

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has voiced his support for plans for International Monetary Fund (IMF) gold reserves to be used to finance debt relief for the world's 70 poorest countries.

Addressing a gathering of 18 African finance ministers at the Commission for Africa meeting in Cape Town on Monday, Brown also called for the establishment of an international financing facility to generate an additional USD 50 billion annually in extra resources to help achieve the United Nations' (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by the target of 2015.

-END-

That was today. On Friday this same bombastic bozo, the one who sold 400 tonnes of English citizens’ gold for $280 an ounce a few years ago, also said the following in this article:

U.K.'s Brown to Urge G-7 Ministers to Ease Poverty

Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown will tell of ``shock'' and ``hope'' he experienced during a tour of Africa when he meets next month with finance ministers from the Group of Seven industrial nations and will urge them to alleviate poverty on the continent.

``It is right to tell the G-7 finance ministers and politicians that, as long as we fail to act, all those promises of help to parents and children we have made are not going to be redeemed,'' Brown told reporters traveling with him in an interview today in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. ``We have seen grinding, abject, relentless poverty and we have had a glimpse at the aching souls of the left-out millions.''…. Brown said much of his passion for helping the world's poor came from his father John and the tales of church missionaries he heard when growing up in Kircaldy, Scotland. `Tragedy and Tribulations' ``My father was a Church of Scotland minister,'' Brown said. ``There were many contacts between the Church of Scotland and Africa and we repeatedly heard stories of people coming back from Africa. From a very, very early age you were hearing both the tragedy and tribulations of Africa.''

Brown said fatherhood had also encouraged him to seek greater aid and made him more emotional when he met young children in poverty. Brown has a 14-month old son and lost his first child, a daughter, after she died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Jan. 2002, 10 days after she was born.

``You're looking into the eyes of children all the time and you ask what their prospects are going to be,'' he said. ``It does influence you. It does influence you when you see the problems children face.''

-END-

This guy doesn’t give a rat’s butt for the poor. If he did, he would be asking the richer nations to HOLD BACK on all gold sales. The price of gold would then soar and the economies in the sub-Saharan Africa would be enhanced enormously, especially as far as the poor are concerned. A soaring gold price, allowing substantially higher gold producer profitability, should put 100,000 miners back to work. Each miner supports 10 to 12 dependents. Then, you have the economic multiplier effect from this increased gold mining activity and so on and so on.

So how does South Africa respond? Their Finance Minister kowtows to the British clown like South Africa is an acquiescent colony of England:

Reuters – January 18
SA backs UK IMF gold plan for debt relief

The world's biggest gold producer, South Africa, backs a British proposal to use International Monetary Fund (IMF) gold reserves to write off the debts of poor countries, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said yesterday.

Gordon Brown, Britain's finance minister, has suggested the IMF use some of its gold reserves to write off $12-billion of debt owed by the world's poorest countries as part of a wide-ranging plan for poverty relief.

Asked yesterday if he supported the proposal, Manuel said that revaluing of the IMF's gold was "very necessary".

So far, Brown has won little backing from global policymakers on his proposal for the IMF to support debt relief with a revaluation of its massive gold stocks - one of the biggest in the world - by selling and then buying back a portion.

South Africa's share of global output has slipped from 27% in 1993 to 15% in 2002, as high-grade deposits near the surface ran out of ore, hitting production. But it remains the top producer, and its backing for the plan is key.

Manuel was speaking on the sidelines of a two-day meeting of Britain's Commission for Africa, which aims to put poverty at the top of the global agenda as Britain takes the G-8 presidency.

He also said South Africa was not against selling the institution's gold reserves as long as this was managed so as to avoid swings in the price of the precious metal.

"We (as a global community) have done it before and can do it again, we shall do it again, but as a major gold producer we want to take part in the negotiations to ensure the price is managed."

Manuel said global sales of gold reserves by individual countries were inevitable given the diminished need to hold them, but sales by the IMF for debt relief should take priority.

Gold producers should expect gold sales, whether by the IMF for debt relief or by individual nations seeking to raise cash.

"As gold producers we have to be realistic, with so many countries sitting with huge gold reserves and these reserves not being used to defend exchange rates any longer as they were in the past, it's likely that they will sell," Manuel said.

"We would probably want to ask that if we could speed up debt relief and ensure that there is deeper debt relief for African countries, that the IMF sales get precedence over some of the other countries sales," he told reporters.

Brown's proposal is part of a wider plan to get donor countries to repatriate their share of World Bank and African Development Bank debts owed by developing countries, a process which Britain has already begun.

Under a 1971 agreement, most IMF gold is valued at just $40/oz to $50/oz, about a tenth of the current market price of more than $420/oz.

The IMF holds more than 100-million ounces of gold. Development agencies say revaluing the gold could raise some $30-billion for poor countries, although some nations are worried it could rattle markets. – Reuters

-END-

This is the first time I have seen mention of selling IMF gold and then only buying back a portion. As far as I am concerned, Trevor Manuel is somewhat of a traitor and should be viewed as such by a faction in South Africa.

My assessment is not over the top and not without some degree of knowledge of what is going on down there. In early 2001 I toured the country to expose the gold price manipulation scandal, finding my way to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria. I met with the Minister of Mines, the number three executive at the South African Reserve Bank in Pretoria, the leading politician of a leading opposition party, etc. Then on May 10, 2001 we held our GATA African Gold Summit in Durban. Five sub-Saharan African gold producing nations were represented and it was prime time TV material two days running on SABC!

Without going into too many details at this point, it was very clear to me the power structure in SA is mainly interested in holding onto that power, and to make sure its lines to THE MONEY were not interrupted. Bottom line: affronting The Gold Cartel was a no-no. JP Morgan Chase is one especially powerful creature in that part of the world and the politicos, as well as most of the gold companies, are petrified of bucking them.

If that is what they want to do, that is their business. But to do it surreptitiously and lyingly is another. For a guy like Trevor Manuel to pontificate he is for gold sales to help the poor is the height of hypocrisy. He is nothing more than a mouthpiece for The Gold Cartel, as is England’s Mr. Bozo Brown.

OK, that is my rant. Now for some backup which bolsters where I am coming from. First an update from the IMF regarding gold loans/swaps, etc. For those not interested in all this intricacy and detail, go right to the BOLD in the update:

Repurchase agreements, securities lending, gold swaps and gold loans:

An update

Prepared by the IMF
for the December 2004
Meeting of the Advisory Expert Group on National Accounts

This paper is for the information of the members of the Advisory Expert Group (AEG), regarding the currently accepted treatment of repurchase agreements, securities lending without cash collateral1, gold loans, and gold swaps2. The paper also sets out areas where work is continuing by the IMF Committee on Balance of Payments (Committee) and on which the Committee will provide further reports in due course.

Gold swaps and Gold loans or deposits

Gold swaps are usually undertaken between monetary authorities. The gold is exchanged for foreign exchange deposits (or other reserve assets) with an agreement that the transaction be unwound at an agreed future date, at an agreed price. The monetary authority acquiring the foreign exchange will pay interest on the foreign exchange received. Gold swaps are typically undertaken when the cash-taking monetary authority has need of foreign exchange but does not wish to sell outright its gold holdings. In that manner, gold is a leveraging device. Gold swaps sometimes involve transactions where one of the parties is not a monetary authority (usually it is another depository corporation). Gold swaps between monetary authorities do not usually involve the payment of margin.

Finally, how the "fee" for gold swaps and gold loans/deposits should be treated has yet to be resolved. All these matters are being considered by the Committee and a report will be taken to the AEG in due course.

-END-

I will do the best I can to get right to the point of this dry subject, for it is ESSENTIAL to GATA’s argument. GATA says the gold loans/swaps are 16,000 tonnes plus, meaning half the central bank gold is not there any more. The gold establishment now says they are less than 3500 tonnes out on loan, as 1500 tonnes have been returned by gold producers over the past three years.

GATA says the central banks, at the behest of The Gold Cartel and the IMF, are purposely deceiving the world’s citizens and investing public about how much gold they REALLY have. The statement above that central banks may have double counted their true gold reserves is an admission of what they have done.

Now to the evidence which proves THEY DID SO DELIBERATELY!! The following piece, written in a similar state of rage years ago, reveals central banks emailing GATA that the IMF instructed them to account for lent/swapped gold as reserves, while denying to GATA, in writing, that was the case! GATA’s Andrew Hepburn caught the IMF in a blatant lie. Touche:

December 18, 2001http://www.gata.org/bofi.htmlThe Bank of Italy Confirms Gold Cartel, IMF Gold Deception The following documentation and statements were presented in Reg Howe's lawsuit filed in the District Court of Massachusetts against Defendants: Bank for International Settlements, Alan Greenspan, William J. McDonough, J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc., Chase Manhattan Corp., Citigroup, Inc., Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Deutsche Bank AG and Lawrence H. Summers, Secretary of the Treasury.

*In July 1998, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, testifying before the House Banking Committee, stated: "Nor can private counterparties restrict supplies of gold, another commodity whose derivatives are often traded over-the-counter, where central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise." This statement amounted to a declaration that the gold price had been and would continue to be controlled.

*According to reliable reports received by the plaintiff, this effort was later described by Edward A. J. George, Governor of the Bank of England and a director of the BIS, to Nicholas J. Morrell, Chief Executive of Lonmin Plc:

The "abyss" comment made by George and related by Morrell is no rumor monger talk. Morrell quoted George in front of three people that I know personally pursuant to the dramatic rise in the price of gold following the surprise Washington Agreement announced on September 26, 1999.

The evidence that the GATA Army has collected over the past year since Reg Howe filed his Complaint fully supports Morrell's comment that the central banks would do anything to "manage" the price of gold. Tragically, "anything" came to mean lying, deceiving and breaking various laws.

The essence of the Washington Agreement was that 15 European banks agreed to limit the sales of central bank gold to 400 tonnes per year for 5 years and not to increase their lending of gold over that time. The British and the Americans were not clued in prior to the announcement.

The reaction of the gold price to the Washington Agreement was the most dramatic rise in the price of gold ever. That is not what any of the central bankers had in mind. They were just perturbed at the tactics of The Gold Cartel to suppress the gold price and wanted to do something about it. They had no intention of creating financial chaos.

How could they have been so surprised at what occurred? Easy. They were working off the inept gold industry gold loan numbers of less than 5,000 tonnes. The real number was more than double that at the time, which means the central banks had FAR less gold in their vaults than they realized.

The announcement set off a panic because the yearly supply/demand was running over 1600 tonnes (again, more than they realized) and there would be no way to hold the gold price down under the new agreement. The scheming Gold Cartel was in deep trouble. Something had to be done FAST. A solution had to be found that would allow the central banks and The Gold Cartel to calm down the market by feeding central bank gold into that market to satisfy the strong gold demand.

The problem for The Gold Cartel and the central banks was they needed to come up with a way to get the job done and not let the investment world realize the seriousness of the situation. Some sort of plan of deception had to be devised and one was - in Santiago, Chile in October 1999 by the IMF. The plan centered around IMF central bank members "swapping out" their gold, yet still accounting for that gold as a central bank gold asset.

To put it bluntly, they would perpetuate a lie about what the true status of central bank gold really was. We know that to be the case as a result of the super-sleuthing of GATA Army's Andrew Hepburn of Canada.

Andrew asked the IMF the following:

Why does the IMF insist that members record swapped gold as an asset when a legal change in ownership has occurred?

The IMF answered:

Yet, the following can be found on the central bank of The Philippines website:

The central banks of Portugal, Finland, and the ECB itself, then all confirmed (in writing) the Philippine's treatment of gold swaps to Hepburn.

Hepburn's latest investigative work reveals the Bank of Italy changing their accounting procedures in October of 1999 to accommodate the IMF's devious scheming. Andrew Hepburn just reported in with the following:

I had been under the impression that Italy was very pro-gold and that none of their reserve had been lent/swapped out. I can now state with a fair degree of certainty that they are indeed "managing" their reserve. A few days ago I emailed the Bank of Italy and inquired as to whether or not they had swapped, lent or otherwise transferred any of their gold to investment banks or other central banks. Today I received I response which did not answer my question but instead pointed me to a publication on their website entitled "Monetary and Credit Aggregates of the Euro Area: the Italian Components".

Unfortunately, the way the site works is that there are no separate URL's so I can only give the directions for getting to the report that I'm about to focus on. To quote the email I received "...you can find the data you requested on www.bancaditalia.it
under the item Publications\Statistics\Supplements to the Statistical Bulletin\ Money and credit aggregates of the euro area: the Italian components in table 1 in the column "Gold and gold receivables".

The name of the column, "Gold and Gold receivables" indicates that at least part of the reserve represents only a paper claim on gold-i.e. not all the gold is in the vaults of the Bank of Italy.

The next interesting piece of information is found in the notes/definitions section of the report. On page 45, S034162M, which apparently is the code for an account, reads in the following manner:

"S034162M – CENTRAL BANK: ASSETS – GOLD AND GOLD RECEIVABLES
Comprises the gold owned by the Bank of Italy and receivables in respect of deposits denominated in gold and swaps."

The above essentially confirms that the Bank of Italy is active in the swaps/deposit market. The next excerpt of note is found on page 48 of the report. They state that:

"In October 1999, as part of the harmonization of the Eurosystem statistics, the accounting treatment of the Bank of Italy's official swaps (in gold and dollars) with the EMI between September 1997 and June 1998 and with the ECB from July to December 1998 was modified. The main change was the switch from stating gold assets net of official swaps to stating them gross of such transactions."

A few things are of interest here. First, they admit to doing gold swaps. Second and much more importantly in October, 1999 the ECB adopted the collateralized loan approach to accounting for gold swaps. This is the same treatment that the IMF denied it ever recommended but we know to be the case. Under this treatment swapped gold remains as a reserve asset even though the ownership has changed and the gold has left the vault. Furthermore, this accounting change went into effect around the time of the Washington Agreement. If I remember correctly, the WA only curtailed sales and lending; it said nothing about swaps. Because of the new treatment it is very possible that gold swaps have increased significantly since late 1999.

The term "official swaps" is in reference to swaps with the EMI and ECB. I'm unsure as to the level of swaps with the EMI but I believe around 15% of the ECB's reserves are in gold which means that Italy transferred at least 450 tonnes in that swap arrangement.
On page 51 in the "Methodological Index", the following is said when explaining an account code:

S003675M – AVERAGE LIQUIDITY DATA – NET ASSETS IN GOLD AND FOREIGN CURRENCY
Net gold and foreign currency claims on non-euro-area residents.

Unfortunately, they do not specify how much of the claims are on gold and how much on foreign currency. What is interesting, however, is that the Bank of Italy apparently has a gold claim on a non-euro-area country. It would be very interesting to see if Italy has a gold swap with the BIS, the IMF or even the U.S.

Andrew

What Andrew has uncovered ought to be one of the most important findings ever for the gold industry. The BIS and GFMS (generally accepted gold industry statistician) state that central bank gold loans are around 5,000 tonnes. Neither mentions anything about what the total amount of gold "swapped out" of the central banks might be.

GATA suggests that amount is significant. So significant that we believe the total amount of central bank gold that has been lent/swapped is closer to 15,000 tonnes, not 5,000 tonnes.

The difference between the two numbers has staggering ramifications for all gold market participants and investors. GATA believes that if the "truth" were known, the price of gold would have to more than double to ration the "true" supply of gold left to satisfy demand.

This is just what The Gold Cartel does not want the investment world or general public to know. That is why they have stifled GATA's discoveries and refuse to allow our startling findings to be presented in the mainstream U.S. press.

GATA has caught The Gold Cartel and the IMF doing something that is very wrong. To allow them to continue to get away with this sham is even more wrong!

The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee and our Army of supporters ask the gold industry to examine the facts and help us fight to expose the "truth."

Who could be against that?

Bill Murphy
Chairman
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee

The direction the IMF, Brown, and Manuel are trying to take the world in as far as the poor in sub-Saharan Africa is concerned is disingenuous. If it were not for these folks and The Gold Cartel, the price of gold would be FAR higher and there would be substantially more funds available to help the poor.

More importantly, there would be hope, which there is little of in the black communities right now. I will never forget what my black South African cab driver/chauffeur friend told me during my tour of the country. I "Bill," he said, "these kids have no hope. They get into trouble because they have no future. They have unprotected sex (and contract AIDS) far too early because there is nothing else for them on the horizon."

Wild-eyed diatribe on my part as far as what is wrong and what could be in South Africa? Not at all. We need only refer to Midas commentary this summer about the Russians, who know what GATA knows:

THEN, in a stunning development, Oleg V. Mozhayskov, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia, bluntly brought GATA to the attention of the mainstream gold world, which I am sure had most of them gagging. Mozhayskov delivered the keynote address at the London Bullion Dealers Conference in Moscow on June 4th 2004. His speech was delivered in Russian. The only words he mentioned in English were Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (or GATA)…..

Here is a quote from this remarkable speech in which this Russian banking bureaucrat lashes out against the US for its economic policies:

"This dualism in gold price formation distinguishes it from other commodities and makes the movements in the price sometimes so enigmatic that market analysts need to invent fantastic intrigues to explain price dynamics. Many have heard of the group of economists who came together in the society known as the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee and started a number of lawsuits against the U.S. government, accusing it of organising an anti-gold conspiracy. They believe that with the assistance of a number of major financial institutions (they mention in particular the Bank for International Settlements, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and others), some senior officials have been manipulating the market since 1994. As a result, the price dropped below US$300 an ounce at a time when it should, if it had kept pace with inflation, reached US$740-760."

-END-

That’s right…$750 gold if it were not for The Gold Cartel.

This is what an industry organization like the World Gold Council should be in a rage over. Instead, they say and do nothing, this useless group. Something must be done about this. GATA has that some thing in mind. Stay tuned.

MIDAS 

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-- Posted Tuesday, 18 January 2005 | Digg This Article