Assets of the Fed 1915 to 2012

H/T Acting Man - Full Article on Buffet and Gold is linked here.

Slog reports London Gold Exchange 'permanently' closed

The report may be read from here.

Wondering why gold fell in price yesterday?

Read the latest Crash 2 The Slog exclusive, from here.

Merkel rejects colleagues call for Greek Gold!

On 6th August this blog spelt out in a very detailed posting why the EFSF would not be able to function without contributions from Italy and Spain. The post attracted two very illuminating and important comments from Denis Cooper. The posting is linked here.

The disputes regarding collateral, upon which this blog has been commenting ever since the requirement for Finland and Greece to reach a collateral agreement was included in the deal for the second Greek Bailout, a point being totally ignored by the MSM reporters belatedly coming to this fiasco, is now being used to obscure the harsher fact that NONE of the parties to the 21st July accord can really afford to enter into the far reaching obligations the agreement involves. An updated explanation of the EFSF was issued on 2nd August and is linked here.

The case appears to me to be that the ECB is also now incurring yet more liabilities, for in purchasing existing Italian and Spanish bonds and then sanitising equivalent amounts, as announced yesterday, at the end of the day is buying assets others do not want they cannot therefore be worth the full purchase price. Self-filling money boxes and Golden Geese I accepted as only fairy tales when leaving boyhood!

The Irish Times article on Greek Gold, which would be almost funny in other times, is linked here. If the Greeks have all that Gold at the present record high world gold price, pushing up towards $2,000 an ounce, why would they require all these interest rate subsidised loans?

EU crisis - Juncker to meet Tremonti on Wednesday

The euro currency is firmly on the skids this evening. Tremonti meeting Juncker tomorrow, read Forbes from here, hardly seems the kind of response that could possible achieve anything.

Gold has hit $1647 an ounce with an hour's trading left to go on the markets in New York.

Read an interesting item, urging Trichet to change his spots and start printing money, titled 'Can Jean-Claude Trichet turn into Jean-Claude Van Damme' from Forex Crunch, linked here.  This being expected from the man who actually raised Euro interest rates just a couple of weeks or so ago.

Is Gold Money? - Bernanke says No!

Note Bernanke's description of "tail risk" - really, really bad outcomes.

That is where we are all at!

Plea for sanity from World Bank Chief

At last a glimmer of light appears in the dark tunnel of despair still madly under construction by the likes of Bonkers Helicopter Bernanke and his madly churning false money printing presses. The head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, in Singapore has called for an anchor, such as gold, to end the wild fluctuations in global currency markets of recent years. Read the AFP report from here. This blog has advocated such a fix as the only escape from greed-driven politicians over many years, some links to our earlier suggestions: Needed a New Bretton Woods Agreement, from which I would quote this paragraph: Fixing a value for the dollar requires no international agreement, it can be accomplished by the best brains and economists from across the parties, political spectrum and diverse interests of the nation. With modern vast number crunching computing power it could be as complex and regularly reviewed as any might wish or as simple and eternal as the value of gold or the wheat yield of land. Anything is possible - anything is essential. Brown and Bretton Woods, also from August 2008 from which I would quote the following: On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning one of the lame-brained presenters , incapable of rational or logical reasoning after years of propagating New Labour's lies and spin, was trying to get his sorry apology for a brain around the reason why governments having thrown billions at the banks the latter still would not lend to one another at reasonable rates, the reason of course is clear - the bankers, being more savvy than politicians, are fully aware that such money does not exist, it is entirely a figment of Brown and other leaders imaginations, albeit lying within their power to make their fantasies seem real by the use of printing presses. While from March of that same year, just one of many down the years making the same point, I quote here in full: +++++

Tie the pound to the UK wheat yield!

I tried to post the following comment to the William Rees-Mogg column in this morning's the Times, linked here but repeat it below as it has not appeared: I date the start of these present problems back to 1971 and Nixon freeing the dollar from gold. Since that time currencies have merely moved against one another in a macabre manner apparently directed by government whim and market greed. No investor has anywhere realistic or reliable to currently protect this meaninless worth except in gold or commodities, the value of the latter being themselves doubtful due to the approaching macroeconomic slump. A Central Bank that now tied its currency to something tangible and of constant worth would attract sufficient sound investors to better weather the hurricane. Given that wheat has been the staple of the West I suggest the BoE consider fixing the pound to the value of the annual wheat yield in an acre of land in the Vale of Evesham.

posted by Martin at 12:54 PM +++++

Will Brown finally GO or even say sorry- Gold surges

Gordon Brown MP., as Chancellor of the Exchequer and fresh from raiding and ruining Britain's pensions industry and condemning millions who had invested for their old age to spend their final years in penury or slaves to the odious state, then went on to sell the nation's gold at a knock down price, partly caused by his alerting the markets in advance. Surely with Gold today at around $970 an ounce and set to surge through the $1,000 a troy ounce barrier ... surely now he will have the decency to resign?????