LBMA pledges 'transparency,' so where are the gold swaps and leases?

The LBMA has been corrupted for years, prompting this call for transparency from its CEO.  It's too late--its relevance in the physical gold markets has been usurped by China.

http://www.gata.org/node/17659

New York Fed president, Bill “Let ’em Eat iPads” Dudley, refuses a question about gold swaps in public

http://thedailycoin.org/new-york-fed-president-bill-let-em-eat-ipads-dudley-refuses-a-question-about-gold-swaps-in-public/2016/04/05/

James Turk - The Entire German Gold Hoard Is Gone

This is a long, but incredibly important expose on the existence of Germany's gold reserves.  Due to the financial crisis in 2008, many in the blogosphere have questioned the actual amount of official gold reserves globally, but James Turk uncovered this "imbalance" back in 2001, which coincidentally aligns with the beginning of gold's decade-long bull market.

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2012/10/25_James_Turk_-_The_Entire_German_Gold_Hoard_Is_Gone.html

If your interest is really piqued, try questioning central banks yourself

http://www.gata.org/node/10031

Bundesbank joins Fed in demanding secrecy for gold swaps

http://www.gata.org/node/9363

Gold market manipulation unraveling

https://marketforceanalysis.com/articles/latest_article_310710%20.html

But unallocated gold is not gold at all. It is not gold that has been deposited that is loaned to someone else. It is gold that has been deposited that is loaned simultaneously to many other people. I have estimated that for each ounce in the vault the bullion banks have loaned or sold 45 ounces. So this appears to confirm my thesis that the BIS has been credited 346 tonnes of ledger entry gold in the BIS unallocated gold accounts held with the bullion banks. This makes the BIS an “unsecured creditor” of the bullion banks as defined by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) in their description of “unallocated account” holders.

The FT story suggests at least 10 bullion banks needed physical gold bullion desperately. This looks like a rerun of the 1960’s London Gold Pool fiasco where central banks dishoarded gold to meet massive investor demand in a futile attempt to maintain a gold price of $35/oz.

I have spelled out in recent articles that there is a run on the bullion banks that has commenced and is gaining momentum. Investors and institutions are waking up to the fact that “unallocated gold” is not gold at all but just an unsecured promise for gold. They are now starting to demand delivery and as there is only one ounce backing each 45 ounces that are claimed the situation is turning into what will be a short squeeze of epic proportions.

So investors have bought a record amount of “physical gold” which is actually paper gold which they have never seen and only about 2.3% of what has been sold actually exists. The bullion banks are “awash” with liabilities for the record amount of gold they are supposed to be holding. Investors are now distrusting the bullion banks and are asking for delivery so is it too surprising that the record amount of “physical gold” sales has led to a record gold swap being transacted to give the bullion banks liquidity?

The IMF has been surreptitiously selling gold at a clip of around 15 tonnes per month every month since February without any official announcements and without disclosing the recipients. This is another sign that the bullion banks are in serious trouble.

When 45 ounces of gold are sold but only one real ounce is sourced the result is a massive suppression of the gold price. But the converse is also true; when 45 ounces of gold are demanded for only one that is in the vault the price explosion is beyond imagination.

What is becoming unraveled is not the mystery of the BIS gold swaps as claimed by the FT but the gold price manipulation scheme itself.

BIS gold swaps (part 2)

Thanks to Dick for bringing up this article.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-gold-swap-signals-roadmap-ahead

See BIS gold swaps (part 1) here.

Here are my unedited comments:

I read another article which hinted that Portugal was indeed the country that swapped out their gold to cover the bills. The BIS is a very private organization that meets 10 times a year in Basel. It's in a building that has no signs. Swiss citizens pass it every day and don't even know it exists.

Think of them as a big pawn shop for central bank gold. If you need cash, whether in Euros, dollars, etc., just swap out your gold, and receive the currency requested. If you fail to repay the cash, you lose the gold. That article correctly states gold is double-counted--I'll extend that argument further and say it's counted 45 x, which means the other 44 people who think they have ownership to the gold (unallocated), don't really own that gold. They are paper certificates with no ownership rights.

I'll connect the dots, and declare if/when we transition away from the USDollar, whether it's another paper currency like the SDR, gold as priced in USDollars, will soar. In fact, eventually, the SDR will lose its luster too, because it's made up of a basket of four other paper currencies: the USDollar, yen, British pound sterling, and Euro--none of which are backed by gold either.

So they are merely replacing one paper currency for another, although the SDR will give a semblance of stability, since the devaluation risk is spread out between 4 doomed currencies, instead of one. I don't see how the Chinese and Russians will like this solution either.

But whether the SDR becomes the de facto currency or not, and whether a gold-backed currency becomes the new reserve currency, it spells doom for the USDollar, priced against gold. And since our trades are based on a higher price for gold in USDollars, we will do well. How well is the question. If the transition goes well, and the paper chase is concealed for another decade, gold will rise to $2500. If the formula doesn't work well, gold will be $6300....priced in US Dollars, of course.

I'm more convinced than ever this scenario will happen, and that markets will react violently after the Ponzi schemes of central bankers are exposed. The sad truth is that it doesn't have to happen. Imagine if gold were worth $12,000 an ounce tomorrow, ten times what it is worth right now in the spot market. All of a sudden, the US balance sheet looks a lot better, because the Assets side of the ledger just went up by a huge amount, somewhat offsetting our huge Liabilities (I'm assuming the Fed still has the gold they claim to have in Ft. Knox and the New York Fed, which is a big assumption, given there has been no independent audit since 1953).

But government officials and bankers are too worried about what soaring gold prices signal to the markets, and they're too worried their Ponzi schemes being exposed. Re-valuating gold at much higher prices would be an admission of guilty for decades of price manipulation. But it would also relieve them of the huge burden of being too under capitalized, much like an insolvent bank is.

When your crown jewels are re-valuated at much higher prices, you now have much more equity from which to make loans against. For example, if your house value increased from $1 million to $10 million, you can now tap that additional equity of $9 million and put it to work for you. Government officials and central bankers are more worried about soiling their reputations, so they continue on their search to extend the shell game, instead of focusing on fixing the structural problems of RECAPITALIZING THEIR ASSET BASE and producing income again to pay off their enormous debts.

FDR did this in 1933 by confiscating private gold at $20.67 and later re-valuating gold officially at $35. Obama and Bernanke will have to do this also, but their revaluation would have to be significantly higher for it to accurately reflect the huge supply of USDollars sloshing around worldwide, not just in the US. After all, USDollars are held in private hands, commercial banks, as well as in reserve vaults at foreign central banks. Only then will the US Dollar have any link to gold, which encourages sound monetary policy. In our mad world of derivatives, swaps, and endless printing of paper currencies, nothing is backed by nothing, which is exactly why we had the financial collapse in 2008. Lack of collateral caused the collapse of the subprime securitized mortgage bonds when prices of US residential homes went south. Until currencies are backed by gold, a repeat is inevitable.

Re-valuating central bank gold reserves to accurately reflect global money supply will re-energize the sinking world economy, at least in the developed world, as the most indebted European countries and the US have the most gold in their reserves. Emerging growth countries have a disproportionately low percentage of gold in their reserves and are accelerating their gold holdings.

Of course, central bankers won't take steps to restore gold-backed currencies for the aforementioned reasons, but when the world wakes up to the shell game they have been playing, the markets will force their hand, because gold will be priced at much higher levels.

BIS gold swaps

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLNE66F03J20100716

My take away: central banks are running out of gold, so in lieu of outright selling their inventory, they are swapping it out for currency, with the hope of recovering the gold in the future. If they default, the BIS keeps the gold bullion, similar to a pawn broker.

See disclaimers in the side bar.

Disclosure: long gold and silver, long precious metals mining shares.

Gold swaps, collapsing confidence

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/07/imf-engaged-in-gold-swaps-to-about-380.html