Not your keys, not your coins.
This doesn't make much sense as you would use something like this to keep your keys safe.
France pulls last gold held in US
221–230 of 374 posts
Re: France pulls last gold held in US
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
This doesn't make sense. If they first sold the bars held in the US, then the gold prices rose, then they bought gold in Europe, how the hell did that amount to a capital gain of $15b? How exactly do prices rising over the course of the process lead to these $15b?
First thought: Maybe they bought the gold first? Or the gold price was at a temporary high when they sold it? Second thought: The numbers don't seem to check out: 129t are 4,147,456.307 troy ounces (1 troy ounce = 31.1034768 g). The total gains of 15e9 USD would thus correspond to gains of $3,616.68 per troy ounce, which seems excessively high, given that today's gold price is at ~$4,712. Even if they sold everything…
Unless their cost base was around $1000 per troy ounce or less, as it was before 2010.
Re: France pulls last gold held in US
#223Is anyone here actually reading the article? Yes, they really made a gain of $15B: > But instead of refining and transporting the gold, it opted to sell the bars and purchase new bullion in Europe. […] Due to rising gold prices, the move helped the bank to generate a capital gain of 13 billion euros ($15 billion),
I think the confusion is that both statements can be true depending on what you mean by "gain"
Re: France pulls last gold held in US
#224>However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold. French-US monetary history after WWII: Under the Bretton Woods agreement (1944-1971), the US dollar was the world’s reserve currency, and it was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. Other countries pegged the…
De Gaulle was ahead of his time. He was very skeptical of the control that the US had over Europe through NATO. He left the alliance to build an independent French nuclear program which is paying dividends today amid the current leadership situation in the US.
France is currently contacting selected partners to build a collective nuclear weapon coalition, probably focusing on Norway due to their location and recent oil wealth. Given recent events, reasonable people may disagree strongly on the directions that is leading.
Re: France pulls last gold held in US
#225Is anyone here actually reading the article? Yes, they really made a gain of $15B: > But instead of refining and transporting the gold, it opted to sell the bars and purchase new bullion in Europe. […] Due to rising gold prices, the move helped the bank to generate a capital gain of 13 billion euros ($15 billion),
Is that what led to gold price falling?
Same amount of gold was sold and bought. So, presumably not.
Re: France pulls last gold held in US
#226Good for France to relocate gold back to their own territory, but, uh, how can this result in a 15 B gain? "The overall size of France’s gold reserves still remained unchanged at roughly 2,437 tonnes, which are now entirely held at the BdF’s underground vault in La Souterraine." Is this some special form of French accounting, where the gold becomes more valuable when it returns to French soil?
Central banks often hold gold on their books at very old prices
Re: France pulls last gold held in US
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
What happened is the gold got repatriated. I was looking for a source that a French warship docked and started loading thousands of tons of gold. Your source confirms it as well: > Involving the French Navy was considered, but that would have blown the operation’s cover. Instead, BdF used ocean liners from the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique So it was multiple trips and in commercial liners.
It's something that sounds like a plot point for a heist movie.
Check what happened to the Spanish gold before the end of the Spanish civil war. I think it would be even more dramatic movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Gold_(Spain)
Re: France pulls last gold held in US
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC, De Gaulle & Churchill proposed a UK-FR union at one point (1940?) but it didn't get sufficient support within the French government. Interesting to ponder what the war and later EU trajectories might have looked like if that had happened.
That union was a last ditch effort to try and keep France in the war. If they had implemented it, it would have been undone once the nazis were beaten you can be sure.
From my recollection, the plan was to grant French citizenship to every British citizen and vice versa, in effect "forcing" the governments to defend their citizens to the end. This was very ambitious, hence why it probably did not happen.
But if it had happen, I have a hard time seeing how it could be undone, stripping people of their citizenship, even if they have a second one is no trivial matter.
Re: France pulls last gold held in US
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC, De Gaulle & Churchill proposed a UK-FR union at one point (1940?) but it didn't get sufficient support within the French government. Interesting to ponder what the war and later EU trajectories might have looked like if that had happened.
That union was a last ditch effort to try and keep France in the war. If they had implemented it, it would have been undone once the nazis were beaten you can be sure.
It was suggested again in 1956 in the context of the Suez crisis:
Re: France pulls last gold held in US
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
They didn't repatriate the gold in the sense of physically moving it from the US to France. Instead, they sold the gold that was held in the US and used the money raised to buy gold from other sources, which is held in France. Different gold, and two financial transactions, accounts for the financial gain.
Yes but the article implies that they somehow made 15B in profit by selling the gold in US and buying an equivalent amount which can’t be the case.
What happened was that
a) they bought the gold long time ago for basically nothing and had it on their books valued at basically nothing
b) they sold it now (in the US) for around $15b and thus for accounting purposes realised a $15b gain
c) they bought it back (in France) for around $15b and will have it on the book now valued at $15b.
The fact that the gold price rose over the course of b) selling and c) buying doesn't matter (despite what the article implies). That the gold price rose between a) the original purchase and now b)c), that's what resulted in the profit.