DJ: DID YOU KNOW?
Continuing on with last week’s post (Oct 30th 2022 ) concerning the reality of moving to a gold-backed currency. Currently the U.S. has 261,498,927 troy ounces of gold in the treasury or 8,133.5 tons.
In comparison to the rest of the world, Germany-3,362.4 tons, Italy-2,451.8 tons, France-2436.2 tons, Russia-2,298.5 tons , China- 1985.3 tons. (The IMF holds 2.814. 1 tons but isn’t a country). As of 2022, none of the world’s countries use the gold standard.
Due to trade, money supply and the global economy, the rest of the world would need to go back to the gold standard as well. Why? Because otherwise the countries that use the US dollar could stand with their hands out asking for their dollars to be exchanged for gold. Including debtors like China and Japan which the US owes a large chunk of its multi-trillion-dollar national debt.
At one time the US held over 20,000 metric tons of gold. During the Vietnam war the US dollar was taking a beating and global confidence in the dollar was shrinking. Foreign debtors (because we were on a gold standard) demanded payment in gold thus shrinking our gold reserve to levels we are at now which forced President Nixon to abandon the gold standard (1971) and move to the current fiat system.
For the US (Thus the rest of the world) to go gold backed certain things have to occur. When an economy grows its money supply must increase. To increase the money supply of a gold backed currency you have to either produce more gold (which is 2500 to 3000 tons per/year globally) or raise the value of gold or both. ( According to Jim Rickards the price of gold would jump to $10,000 an ounce)
While logistically it doesn’t sound feasible, it can be done. The title for the gold held by the US Treasury primarily belongs to the Fed. When the run on our gold reserves happened Nixon stopped it at the 8 tons because the Fed owned it.
But the value of that gold (statutory value) has stayed the same at $42.22 per ounce since 1971. The Fed’s Treasury gold certificates are odd. They don’t provide the Fed with a claim on a fixed weight of gold held by the Treasury but rather they provide the Fed with a claim on $11 billion worth of gold.
The capital gains accrues to whoever has title to the gold . As long as the price stays at $42, the full capital gains on the U.S’s gold remains the Fed’s. If the price (statutory value) was set to say $500 per/oz, the Fed would only get 22 million ounces, forfeiting the remaining 239 million ounces to the Treasury .
Now imagine if the value were set to $10,0000 per’oz. Or even if it went to current market values as stated in the summaries introduced in H.R 9157. Which would allow the values to climb as the market dictates, even if it climbed to $10,000 per/oz. So it can be done.
Since the 1960’s Europe was holding most of the world’s monetary gold. In the early 70’s Europe started preparing for a Global Gold Standard. From 1999 until 2008 they did so officially through a “concerted program of sales” dubbed the “Central Bank Gold Agreement” (CBGA). The idea was to evenly redistribute gold holdings throughout developing countries, relative to their GDP, to accommodate for their currencies to be gold backed. That is still in motion.
Then you consider gold production. Only so much gold can be produced per/year. But there are massive stores of gold in the world that have not entered the monetary system. The Historical Bonds effectively are the titles for these massive hoards. Also as the price increases for gold so does the feasibility to go deeper to mine it . Currently the cost of mining gold is only feasible depending how deep you have to go to get at it or how remote it is located. So it can be done.
Here’s a fun fact. According to Google there’s an average of 0.2mgs of gold in the human body. So there you have it. Go melt yourself down and make some money.
DJ
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