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Say USA had 375k metric tons of gold and wants to use it for paying the debt. This would just crash the gold price and the debt would be nowhere near serviced.
by vardump 2y ago
Say USA had 375k metric tons of gold and wants to use it for paying the debt. This would just crash the gold price and the debt would be nowhere near serviced.
- chongli 2y agoWell if the US had all the gold in the world then it will have cornered the market in gold. This would cause the price of gold to skyrocket and the US could trickle some gold into the market for immense profit. In this way the national debt could be serviced easily. Who cares about paying off the principle in a lump sum when you have a guaranteed revenue stream like that with gold?
- gilleain 2y agoLearned the other day about the 'Hunt Brothers' attempts to do something similar in the silver markets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday > The brothers were estimated to hold one-third of the entire world supply of silver not held by governments. It did not go well for them in the end, of course.
- chongli 2y agoAnother pair of traders, Sam Siegel and Vincent Kosuga, had more success cornering the onion futures market [1]. It caused such a crisis in the price of onions (and significant onion spoilage) that Congress passed a law specifically banning the trade of onion futures contracts. One of the most bizarre trading stories and regulatory actions I’ve ever seen! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act?wprov=sfti1# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act?wprov=sfti1#
- vardump 2y agoI should have remembered to mention "in addition to all the other gold currently owned by other parties."