If gold is just a ‘pet rock,’ why are central banks so secretive about it?
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA
GoldSeek.com
Sunday, 9 August 2015
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
“Let’s be honest about gold,” read the headline in The Wall Street Journal on Jason Zweig’s column July 17. “It’s a pet rock”:
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2015/07/17/lets-be-honest-about-gold-its-…
Zweig wrote: “It is time to call owning gold what it is: an act of faith.”
And yet, as gold researcher and GATA consultant Ronan Manly pointed out today in a note to your secretary/treasurer, authorities even higher than The Wall Street Journal seem to have a different opinion.
Manly, who is always examining documentation about gold rather than merely pontificating about it as mainstream financial journalists do, called attention to contrary assertions on the Internet site of London Precious Metals Clearing Ltd. —
http://www.lpmcl.com/
— which manages the over-the-counter gold market in London, the largest in the world (at least for the time being).
In the “About Clearing” section of its Internet site, London Precious Metals Clearing Ltd. says:
“The six London bullion clearing members each maintain confidential secure vaulting facilities within central London locations, using either their own premises or those of a secure storage agent, which are used to process and store precious metals (mostly gold and silver), for both the member and those clients who require custodial storage (including some central banks). …
“[T]hese vaulting facilities enable the depositories to process large physical transactions with a high degree of confidentiality (essential given the sensitivity many governments and central banks place on gold transactions); also, these vaults provide the potential of some modest income from client storage requirements.
The Rest…HERE
