Dutch central bank shifts billions in gold to London in 'crisis preparedness' move
AP News
Dutch central bank shifts billions in gold to London in 'crisis preparedness' move
The Dutch central bank has moved billions of dollars worth of its gold reserves from North America to London.
The “crisis preparedness” argument boiled down that in case of crisis they needed to be able to sell the gold quickly. And that that would be easier in London than it would be in New York or Ottowa.
I do not believe that this is the real reason.
There has been concern about the US “confiscating” (read: stealing) our gold reserves ever since Trump got re-elected. The Dutch Central Bank also has regularly voiced concerns about the reliability of the US, and our over reliance on American financial services and payment services.
I think the real reason is that they want to secure the gold from Trump’s grubby little hands.
And the “official reason” is meant to obfuscate the actual reason, and buy plausible deniability.
Source: nos.nl/…/2629369-nederland-haalt-groot-deel-van-d…
According to the NOS the vast majority of gold that was moved was from the US, not Canada.
The share of Dutch gold stored in New York has gone down from 31.3% to 18.5%.
Edit: Added translations to the graph
Imagine keeping a briefcase full of cash at a loyal friend’s house, then he told you his crack smoking father just moved back in claiming he’s man of the house and all that.
I’d get my shit before it gets confiscated
Not all Crack users are thieves like Trump. I am offended by your analogy
I think you’re right, but in diplomacy the real reason doesn’t matter. It’s like a woman saying they have to powder their nose when she in fact is holding in a big fart. If the Dutch would be honest about their reasons, they would upset the orange toddler, which would not bring them any good.
Trump ordered an audit of the gold stores at Fort Knox. If he just seized all the Dutch gold, what could they do about it?
That must’ve been one heavy shipping container.
(Well, probably more than one, but I’m keeping it because of the expression.)
They just sold most of it and purchased gold in London. The remaining 27 metric tonnes they did ship would only take up 1.4 cubic meters as a solid block, so probably 2-3 cubic meters as bars. A large shipping container can hold about 68 cubic meters, though they’d likely have to spread the gold out to better distribute its weight no matter the shipping method.
Thanks for the facts!
My pleasure! I was curious myself and thought you might appreciate what I found.
People forget that gold is nearly twice as dense as lead. It’s is extraordinarily impractical to transport in large quantities. Conversely you can transport a significant value of gold almost unnoticed - an average us salary weighs under half a kilo in gold today.
It is also not reacting to anything - you can bury your gold somewhere and it will be fine after several thousand years. If you try this with bank notes, chances are that they have rotten away or that the central bank has introduced new notes. That makes gold the perfect thing for criminal enterprises.
Does anybody know how other European countries are handling this situation? Is Germany moving gold resource? France? Italy?
France has basically all of its gold reserves in Paris, since Charles de Gaulle moved them there. Germany has 37% of its gold reserves in the US and there is talk about bringing them back. Italy is at 43% and there seems to be basically nothing, but some discussion in some newspapers.
ft.com/…/e39390cc-ea02-4197-843a-1e4c242422cc?syn…
One thing which is really important here is that the Dutch just sold their gold in New York and at the same time bough gold in London. They did not ship it at all. For Germany and Italy that is not an option, as the gold reserves in the US are so massive, that it would destroy the market. Both combined have about 1% of the gold in the world sitting in the US. Obviously a lot less is physically traded.
EDIT: Also this has to be done fairly quickly. As to not spook the market and piss of Trump.
The Dutch gold reserve is nothing to sneeze at. It’s a fifth the size of Germany’s gold reserve, and a quarter the size of Italy’s
Source: statbase.org/datasets/finance/gold-reserves/
Germany has about 37% of its gold in the US, for the NL this was previously 31.3% (and now 18.5%)
So the amount of Gold that was moved by the NL is still significant.
Edit: Accidentally said quarter the size of Germany and a third the size of Italy. This is incorrect.
Not really a big deal. On a fraction of the holdings were moved. USA is still the safest and most profitable place to store money 🤑
They just shipped literal tons of highly valuable weight out of the US and across the Atlantic Ocean because they don’t trust the US having that much of their gold anymore.
Loosen the red hat a bit. It’s restricting your blood flow.
Literally a fraction of the gold was moved out. Sure it was a ton but they have a lot more here still! Right?
I guess 41% of Dutch gold stored in the US is technically a fraction
Wrong. They moved almost half of it.
No one in this comment thread read the article and each side arguing with incorrect points is pretty comical.
I’ve read the news in Dutch papers, referencing the Dutch Central Bank directly.
Having skimmed through the AP article, it doesn’t really seem to provide any real additional information.
Lmfao true
Dear 10 day old account, here in Lemmy we expect a little more
What’s the expectation? The money is still flowing into the USA. Like it or not, the rich all over the world invest their money here at least for now
The US will go belly up sooner rather than later.