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Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

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Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#61

Post by bluecalm »

holowoodman wrote: post #43
roenxi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US might literally just not give it to them. Germany has been trying to ask for their gold back for a while IIRC and they generally get an explanation that paraphrases to it being a very complex operation to pull off and they should come back next year. The US has enough leverage over Germany that the Nord Stream incident is still an unsolved mystery where everyone just moved on. Probably the Russians did it. Tha…

The official line in Germany is actually that Ukraine most probably did it: https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/nordstream-17... https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/nord-stream-s... https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explos... Knowledge or agreement by Selensky is unclear, but there seem to be hints. Poland might have been complicit or at least turned a blind eye and seems to…

From purely incentive based analysis I would bet on Ukraine/Poland as well. I am Polish and the news was received very warmly here by both citizens and government officials.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#62

Post by Arnt »

stackedinserter wrote: post #34
reedf1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your friend goes to an ATM for $20 and their bank fines them with a large percentage fee on their income; are you likely to also choose this bank?

If I go to any bank to withdraw $50000 in cash, they won't let me either.

You just need to give advance warning, and perhaps pick up the cash at a big branch where the bank has good security.

This isn't difficult.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#63

Post by theGeatZhopa »

nxm wrote: post #28
theGeatZhopa wrote: post #11

Bring it home. US can't be trusted anymore. Bring it home.

*can’t be taken advantage of anymore easily

You mean "the gold of others in your hands?" ... Yes, that's the idea of "bring it home", so no one gets an advantage of except the owner.

You never know what the orange man will propose in the next hour.

But I'm with you. I wouldn't call it "advantage taking" though. I rather would call it a friendship based on "trust, reliance and opportunities" for all. Now, we see, it was wrong. The US can't be trusted anymore. It was an egoistic and toxic relationship - I'm happy it has an ending, now.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#65

Post by charlieyu1 »

bluecalm wrote: post #57

Poland also have around $50B in gold reserves. Is there some law or unwritten law that requires Central Banks to keep so much gold? It looks like waste of resources to me, especially so if it's kept abroad. Is there a scenario in which it's better than just keeping reserves in mix of various government's bonds or some other asset like land or something else.

The point of holding gold is that it is a physical asset that is always valuable. It’s also an very risk-averse asset.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#66

Post by Bairfhionn »

bluecalm wrote: post #57

Poland also have around $50B in gold reserves. Is there some law or unwritten law that requires Central Banks to keep so much gold? It looks like waste of resources to me, especially so if it's kept abroad. Is there a scenario in which it's better than just keeping reserves in mix of various government's bonds or some other asset like land or something else.

The idea of all countries having it in one location: If you have to transfer money to a different country for whatever reason you just have to put the gold from one part of the vault to the other. Money securely, physically and quickly transferred.

Also you have the physical money and don't rely on computers or similar. More secure (if you ignore Die Hard 3).

If countries start moving the gold away it's a) sign that they need the money elsewhere or b) they don't trust the current location anymore.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#67

Post by sdwr »

bluecalm wrote: post #57

Poland also have around $50B in gold reserves. Is there some law or unwritten law that requires Central Banks to keep so much gold? It looks like waste of resources to me, especially so if it's kept abroad. Is there a scenario in which it's better than just keeping reserves in mix of various government's bonds or some other asset like land or something else.

When you have all the money, what do you worry about? Gold is a hedge.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#68

Post by adrian_b »

reedf1 wrote: post #16
jcla1 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Measure its volume by dunking it in a jug of water and compare its weight with its expected weight (depending on the density of gold). There is a famous tale of Archimedes doing exactly this when posed with the problem of determining if a certain crown is made of pure gold.

Presuming you can create an alloy with the same density as gold, I imagined you could also test it's conductivity. I think performing both tests would be enough.

The only metals with which you could make an alloy with the same density as gold, but cheaper than gold, are uranium and tungsten.

Other metals would require too big additions of expensive rhenium/osmium/iridium/platinum to match the density of gold.

The best choice for matching the density of gold is tungsten, but even with that the cost for an exact match of the density would be high. The tungsten objects that are found easily in commerce have a density significantly lower than gold, because they are made from tungsten powder sintered with nickel, not from pure tungsten, which is hard to melt.

The conductivity test is good, but not easy to perform when the object has a complex form. Surface conductivity is easy to measure on any object, but the object could be plated with pure gold, so surface conductivity would show no difference.

For a gold bar of standard dimensions, it should be easy enough to make a text fixture allowing the measurement of the bulk conductivity.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#69

Post by piokoch »

bluecalm wrote: post #57

Poland also have around $50B in gold reserves. Is there some law or unwritten law that requires Central Banks to keep so much gold? It looks like waste of resources to me, especially so if it's kept abroad. Is there a scenario in which it's better than just keeping reserves in mix of various government's bonds or some other asset like land or something else.

This is called war chest. Because the war is coming.

II World War hasn't started with German attacking Poland 1.IX.1939 and Russia (Soviet Union) on 17.IX.1939. There was Spanish Civil War earlier (1936), annexation of the Sudetenland - part of Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#70

Post by adrian_b »

celticninja wrote: post #20
reedf1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presuming you can create an alloy with the same density as gold, I imagined you could also test it's conductivity. I think performing both tests would be enough.

No need for an alloy tungsten will do.

It is rather expensive to make objects of pure tungsten. The tungsten objects that you see for sale are not pure and they have a density more than 5% lower than gold, which is easy to detect by weighing.
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