Why Deutsche Bundesbank had to promise to leave 1200 tons of gold in New York

> Reading in between the lines, it seems as if a good chunk of gold has gone missing and there is an attempt by both sides to save face.

Or more likely: you do not want to cause any confusion in the markets. Ultimately the state of that gold has very little impact on the world as it moves. However any speculation about it, potentially can have impact (and most likely not positive one). When people in Europe started to question the state of that Gold Germany and other countries had to act in some form.

So for as long as the general population does not further dig into the issue (or we have some sort of cataclysmic event) the gold does not matter all that much.

When we build systems, we run tests to see if they actually work the way we think the should. We verify, as independently as possible, because it is important.

What would happen if we went to evidence based banking instead of just taking the word of people with obvious ulterior motives.

> Gold is money, which is based on physical ownership, not on trust in the willingness and ability of another party to honor their promises. If you have gold, but you do not have it under your control, it is almost pointless to have gold.

Really digging this one. That's why I proactively not listen to investors/consultants who suggest to buy some gold derivates for savety purposes.

In other regards: What's the point of the author? That's how the "king's peace" works since forever. Having the biggest stick and control over the valuable stuff makes you the king. And as long as you provide a stable leadership live of people is mostly peaceful. That's why people are willing to accept this trade. It's unfair but we actually want it that way. And what should the others do? Say "yeah, we totally accept that he has us by the balls"? No they act like it would be their decision so that they also keep some of their own power.

It seems the author is smart enough to know all this, so seriously: What's he attempting to achieve here?

Ah that reminds me so much of Game of Thrones were this one dude builds all his power and businesses based on an empty vault and a promise of what is inside.

Centuries ago countries, or strongmen anyway, used to formalize allegiances by trading human hostages. We're friends for all eternity because your cousin is a valued "guest" of my court and vice versa. We do that with central banks and gold now a days.

So keeping a relationship of balanced trust, yanking assets from one location will have an equal and opposite reaction probably in a completely different form somewhere else. The manipulated currency exchange rates will wiggle. Imported black forest cuckoo clocks will get a different tariff. The ratio of central bank interest rates will wiggle. Sometimes 3rd parties get roped into the deal so perhaps the GBP-USD ratio will wiggle in some manner. Something is gonna happen to balance it and you can either control what happens, influence what happens, or toss hands in air and hope the free market does the right thing. A lot of people are paid a lot of money to not do the later, so you can generally assume that politician-like or IT consultant-like, the strongly advised reaction by the people is never for their paycheck writing organization to do nothing.

So something of equal and opposite reaction, probably agreed upon ahead of time, is about to happen.

Ideally in some sort of pacifistic utopia it would be illegal for citizens to store movable assets in-country or invest locally. We're rather unlikely to bomb Germany again anytime soon, or unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, but it is sad to see the old (by my human lifespan standards) relationship on shakier grounds. Oh well.