Skynsamlegt hjá Indlandi og fleirum

Seðlabankar heims eru nú óðum að koma dollara- og evrubirgðum út og kaupa gull fyrir þær við hvert tækifæri. Obama getur prentað bandaríska dollara eins og óður maður þar til hagkerfi Bandaríkjanna hrynur niður í óðaverðbólgu, en hann getur ekki fjöldaframleitt gull. Þess vegna er það talið góð fjárfesting að koma gjaldeyrisforða sínum úr dollara og í gull, og varðveita þannig kaupmátt hans.

Nokkur áhugaverð orð héðan (frá nóvember 2009):

For centuries, gold has been the bane of profligate governments. For decades, Western governments, led by the U.S., have sought to demonetize the 'embarrassing' metal. Most recently, the U.S. led other central banks into the secretive Central Bank Gold Agreements (CBGA). These were designed to coordinate, through the IMF, the sale of some 500 metric tonnes of central bank gold into the market each year. The covert aim has been to make gold less attractive by concealing its appreciation and, simultaneously, create maximum price volatility to destroy gold’s legitimacy as a monetary instrument.

Since 1980, when gold reached $850 a fine ounce (or some $2,330 in today's debased dollars), the CBGA has been successful at disparaging gold investment. To this day, most Wall Street commentators reflexively opine against gold whenever the conversation turns to it. Displaying staggering ignorance or bias, they cite the lack of interest paid on gold and its storage costs. They ignore completely gold's total return, through capital gain, which is up by over 100 percent in the past five years.

In keeping with the CBGA, it has long been considered taboo for major central banks to be seen buying gold. But the pacts are losing their grip.

China, now the world's largest gold producer, has quietly increased its gold holdings by some 75 percent in just 7 years, while remaining a 'loyal' CBGA player. Cleverly, she has sidestepped the unwritten CBGA non-purchase rule by quietly diverting part of her domestic production into the central bank's vaults before it enters the global marketplace.

Publicly, China has led international calls for the replacement of the U.S. dollar as the privileged reserve currency by a basket of currencies and gold.

Unable to tolerate the continued debasement of their dollar reserves, other developing countries are now taking defensive moves. Earlier this month, India bought 200 metric tons of gold from the IMF at market rates, increasing its reserves by 50%. Then, just today, Russia announced that it will be shifting reserve ratios in favor of commodity currencies, like the Canadian dollar, and gold.

Far more distressing than the flight of central banks from the paper dollar are recent reports that certain governments, including Germany, Hong Kong, and members of OPEC, are now removing their gold holdings from the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. If true, these reports could portend the risk of a gold run on the world's two key central banks.

AGS selur 403 tonn af gulli