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> 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

> 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.

Theodores 10y ago
"The gold in the U.S. was earned by West Germany through trade surpluses in the 1950s and 1960s and was never moved out of the United States due to fear of invasion by the Soviet Union." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_repatriation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_repatriation So for a while the U.S. was saying to Germany 'thanks for those cars, machine tool and other goodies, have some gold, we will keep it in the vault safe until you need it...' and, after a while, got a bit lax about moving the piles of gold from one vault to the next. So it is not as if this gold got there due to the Germans prudently shipping it across the Atlantic for safe keeping, it is money that should have been paid in gold for goods exported by Germany to the USA. I think they were promised to be paid and no physical gold was ever moved or paid.
- slv77 10y ago
  The US would be more than happy to pay back the Germans through exports of machine tools and cars and other goodies. I believe that German structural trade surpluses are an issue both inside and outside the Eurozone. Also after WWII the US had accumulated essentially all the worlds gold reserves leaving their currencies without backing. The alternative to the Bretton Woods agreement was the US gifting gold reserves.

Theodores 10y ago

"The gold in the U.S. was earned by West Germany through trade surpluses in the 1950s and 1960s and was never moved out of the United States due to fear of invasion by the Soviet Union." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_repatriation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_repatriation So for a while the U.S. was saying to Germany 'thanks for those cars, machine tool and other goodies, have some gold, we will keep it in the vault safe until you need it...' and, after a while, got a bit lax about moving the piles of gold from one vault to the next. So it is not as if this gold got there due to the Germans prudently shipping it across the Atlantic for safe keeping, it is money that should have been paid in gold for goods exported by Germany to the USA. I think they were promised to be paid and no physical gold was ever moved or paid.

slv77 10y ago
The US would be more than happy to pay back the Germans through exports of machine tools and cars and other goodies. I believe that German structural trade surpluses are an issue both inside and outside the Eurozone. Also after WWII the US had accumulated essentially all the worlds gold reserves leaving their currencies without backing. The alternative to the Bretton Woods agreement was the US gifting gold reserves.