Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

norberthaering.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 238 posts

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

#211

Post by erikb »

easilyBored wrote: post #158
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold sort of works for sovereigns. It's crap for individuals. Any situation where you need to rely on physical gold is a situation where someone else will take it from you by force.

The same principal applies to states, and that's why they shipped the gold to USA to begin with...to save it from the Russians. Gold is for when that stuff hits the fan: no one will take your paper money or if they do, you'll need 50lbs of trillion billion dollar bills to buy a loaf of bread. By noon the price will double. If you're net liquid worth is well into millions, why not have a few hundred gold coins laying…

What I mean is that it doesn't really matter if the Russians or the Americans have it, at least from a German perspective. Whoever has it has quite some power over Germany. That we might consider US or RU the bad guys is more based on propaganda than on actual facts. Both can be quite bad as well as helpful allys. And both probably have smart enough leadership to use this kind of chip for bargain rather than total exploitation. So it's not like the Russian would have stolen it, it's more like that the cold war might have had a different winner and Germany would be a semi-independent partner as it is now, just to the Russians rather than the Americans.

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

#212

Post by Consultant32452 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #180
erikb wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the value is much smaller since your power to keep it is smaller. But the amount will also be smaller. And I would say there are still quite a few situations where having something of trade value is better than having nothing.

> there are still quite a few situations where having something of trade value is better than having nothing I struggle to think of ones where physically-held gold is better than cash. It only happens when your government fails. In that case ( e.g. a Communist revolution or civil war) it's easier to kill you and take everything than negotiate. Where it might have had value, e.g. an American holding pounds sterling du…

It's not necessarily negotiating, it's likely fleeing your home country to some other place and having an asset you can easily turn into the local currency wherever you wind up. And at $1,200/oz you can carry/conceal a sizable amount on the "personal money" scale.

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

#213

Post by enimodas »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #180
erikb wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the value is much smaller since your power to keep it is smaller. But the amount will also be smaller. And I would say there are still quite a few situations where having something of trade value is better than having nothing.

> there are still quite a few situations where having something of trade value is better than having nothing I struggle to think of ones where physically-held gold is better than cash. It only happens when your government fails. In that case ( e.g. a Communist revolution or civil war) it's easier to kill you and take everything than negotiate. Where it might have had value, e.g. an American holding pounds sterling du…

Qaddafi paid his mercenaries in gold near the end of his reign.

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

#216

Post by Lev1a »

joosters wrote: post #168
roenxi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currencies actually fail quite regularly (hints: Zimbabwe, Venezuela) - it makes a lot of sense to hold wealth in a form that will survive that. Maybe someone wants to claim that any individual country "will never" suffer from a currency crisis. I'll just point out that America went from Barack Obama to Donald Trump in one election then agree to disagree. Countries want an asset that can hold wealth through a crisis…

But where currencies fail (as in Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Iraq, etc), gold never became a backup currency. No-one was trading gold coins for goods and services, and anyone trying to leave these countries carrying gold was at serious risk. Gold isn't going to help you here, at worst it'll put you in more danger.

Bluntly said:

The gold of the central banks is not for saving the asses of the common folk but for saving the ass of the government and to have at least the tiniest sliver of hope of being able to somehow rebuild an economy after the whole failing state business is over and done with.

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

#217

Post by raverbashing »

mercurialshark wrote: post #208

It's difficult to take this article seriously. > the New York Fed, an institution that is owned and controlled by Wall-Street-banks No, it isn't. > In a country, whose current president considers it an imposition that the law and so-called judges tell him what he is allowed to do and not allowed to do. His rhetoric doesn't prevent the judiciary from acting or render the other two branches moot. > The way in which the…

Can you really say with a straight face that if they can't produce what they say they are storing for a third party that their reputation is not going to go down the drain?

If any bank prevents anyone from getting their deposited money, for reasons other than legal, there would be serious questions about their trust

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

#218

Post by coredog64 »

portent wrote: post #202
erikb wrote: post #36

> 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…

I have been to the NY Federal Reserve Building and seen much of the gold - from the outside of the open door of the vault. This is the highlight of the public tour of the FRB in lower Manhattan. There are many different cages inside the vault - some containing just a handful of bars, and some with gold stacked near to the roof. But we are not told which cage corresponds to which country - that information is secret.…

> the Federal Reserve is a very secure place

Until Simon Gruber shows up

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

#219

Post by jcfrei »

mercurialshark wrote: post #208

It's difficult to take this article seriously. > the New York Fed, an institution that is owned and controlled by Wall-Street-banks No, it isn't. > In a country, whose current president considers it an imposition that the law and so-called judges tell him what he is allowed to do and not allowed to do. His rhetoric doesn't prevent the judiciary from acting or render the other two branches moot. > The way in which the…

It appears to be just another one of these fluff pieces gold bugs keep on sharing. Full of allegations and semi-truths in order to suggest that gold is all that matters.

> It consisted in the promise that in exchange for getting those 300 tons, they would leave four times as much in New York and stop forever fussing about it. This is my reading anyway, based on what I understand is usual diplomatic custom and lingo in such affairs.

No factual evidence is provided to back up those claims. And other news outlets about the same event (eg. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/business/germany-gold-res... ) don't feature any similar interpretations.

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

#220

Post by mcv »

raverbashing wrote: post #217
mercurialshark wrote: post #208

It's difficult to take this article seriously. > the New York Fed, an institution that is owned and controlled by Wall-Street-banks No, it isn't. > In a country, whose current president considers it an imposition that the law and so-called judges tell him what he is allowed to do and not allowed to do. His rhetoric doesn't prevent the judiciary from acting or render the other two branches moot. > The way in which the…

Can you really say with a straight face that if they can't produce what they say they are storing for a third party that their reputation is not going to go down the drain? If any bank prevents anyone from getting their deposited money, for reasons other than legal, there would be serious questions about their trust

Absolutely. If countries want their gold, and the US refuses to give it to them, what does that mean? Has the US stolen it? Has someone else stolen it? If this is true, it suggests that all those countries were wrong to trust the US, as the US is untrustworthy one way or another.

Of course those countries having lost their gold is not good for them either, so it seems everybody has agreed to continue the lie.

This stuff sounds bad enough that it might turn me into a conspiracy theorist. But how is any of this even remotely acceptable?

Post reply on HN