In a recent interview with Chris Marcus of Arcadia Economics, Money Metals Exchange CEO Stefan Gleason deplores the superficiality with which the issue of auditing the U.S. gold reserve at Fort Knox continues to be treated by the Trump administration and financial news organizations.
The audits claimed to have been done by the U.S. government, Gleason says, have not really been audits at all but just a review of paperwork that itself has been improperly altered from time to time.
In any case, Gleason says, much of the U.S. gold reserve is impure metal, not acceptable for trade under current "good delivery" standards, and thus could not be fully mobilized in a financial emergency. U.S. Treasury officials, Gleason says, don't seem to understand this basic issue.
Then, Gleason notes, there is the question of whether the U.S. gold reserve has been encumbered in any way by swaps, leases, or other transactions undertaken for surreptitious intervention in markets. That is, that there is gold in Fort Knox is only part of the issue; the other part is: Does anyone besides the U.S. government have a claim on it?
Gleason also recalls a conversation he had some years ago with former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh, who has just been reappointed to the Fed board as chairman, in which Warsh backhandedly acknowledged that the Fed had intervened surreptitiously in the gold market.
The interview is 27 minutes long and can be viewed at the Arcadia Economics channel on YouTube here:
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