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Money Metals News Alert
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March 10, 2025
– U.S. stock indexes continue to come under heavy selling pressure last week
and today, as the correction approaches 8% from the all-time highs last month.
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Concerns about tariffs,
war, inflation, and weak earnings all factor in, with money flows moving into
safer assets, including cash and gold.
Gold is back in the green
after pulling back in late February, a move which had ended an 8-week winning
streak.
The yellow metal is up
1.6% for the month, while silver is up 4%.
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If the stock market correction
continues or accelerates, silver and particularly gold may outperform.
While both money metals have done
extremely well over the past year, their big gains occurred despite strong rallies
in both the stock market and the dollar.
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Gold : Silver Ratio (as of
Friday's closing prices) – 89.2 to
1
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The Gold at Fort Knox WAS Stolen from
Americans
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In recent days, President Donald
Trump, Elon Musk, Senator Rand Paul, and some others have pressed for an audit of
the US gold reserves, with a special focus on the gold at Fort Knox.
This is perfectly reasonable given
that the U.S. gold reserves—which are the property of the US Treasury and
not the Federal Reserve—have not undergone even a partial audit in at least
twenty years.
Part of the reason for the audit is to
discover if any of the gold has been stolen. The US Mint, the government agency
that acts as custodian of the gold, has reported for many years that the official
size of the gold reserve is 8,133.46 metric tons of gold.
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Since there has been no
audit in so long, though, the Mint???s position is essentially ???trust us, bro.???
Trusting federal
bureaucrats has never been a particularly wise policy, and this is why there are
ongoing demands for some sort of transparent audit.
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U.S.
Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky
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If the total size of the US???s gold
holdings is revealed to be a number below the official number, then it will just
be the latest reminder that there are a great many thieves and incompetents among
the people running the US federal government. After all, if there is less gold
than reported in the US gold reserves, it was presumably stolen at some point.
This would be a fitting destiny for
the U.S. government???s gold since much of that was stolen to begin with.
When I say ???stolen,??? I don???t even mean
in the sense that ???taxation is theft??? and that the US bought the gold using tax
dollars. In truth, the way the US Treasury acquired much of its gold hoard is even
more underhanded than ordinary taxation.
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Rather, it is likely that
most of the gold at Fort Knox, as with the U.S. regime???s gold in general, is gold
stolen from ordinary Americans as a part of Franklin Roosevelt???s efforts to end
the gold standard and confiscate private gold holdings in the United States.
That is, the U.S. gold
reserves are a legacy of the way the US government reneged on its promises to
redeem US dollars in gold.
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Rather than pay out the gold that was
owed to holders of dollars, the U.S. government hoarded it instead. That stolen
gold is what the auditors will be counting if the U.S. government ever allows an
honest accounting of the Treasury???s gold reserves.
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Where Did the Gold at Fort
Knox Come From?
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In his 1994 article for The
Journal of Economic Education, economist William C. Wood writes that ???the Fort Knox depository is now an artifact of
gold standard days.???
He then adds, ???The gold currently in
Fort Knox came from the melting of Depression-era gold coins, from lend-lease
arrangements in War II, and from government operations under the gold standard.???
That reference to ???Depression-era gold
coins??? is telling. Most of those gold coins were likely the coins confiscated from
private owners by the U.S. government following Roosevelt???s Executive Order 6102
which outlawed the private ownership of gold.
Few Americans owned gold bars, of
course, and the gold that was in non-institutional private hands was mostly gold
coins.
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Roosevelt???s edict required
that private citizens hand this gold over to the U.S. government in exchange for
what was effectively below-market prices. And what if you would rather not give up
your property to the U.S. government? Too bad.
Moreover, private banks
and the central bank held gold in the form of coins for dollar holders who, prior
to confiscation, would occasionally present US dollars for redemption in gold.
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This is, in part, the gold in Fort
Knox that Wood classifies as gold held for ???government operations under the gold
standard.???
After 1933, however, banks did not
need to hold onto any gold coins for this purpose since Roosevelt???s effort to end
the gold standard included a prohibition on banks paying out gold.
So, these coins ceased to have an
immediate market value among banks. Where did all these gold coins end up? Most
ended up with the US Treasury after the Treasury seized the Federal Reserve???s gold
in 1934.
Evidence of this can be found in the
nature of the gold that is now held at Fort Knox.
Wood further explains that the gold
there is not the type of gold usually found in gold bars used for international
transactions: ???The gold resulting from melting of coinage has considerably lower
quality than the ???fine??? or ???good delivery??? gold commonly used in international
trade. The majority of the gold in Fort Knox is the lower-quality coin gold.???
The legacy of the US regime???s gold
theft is not limited to the coins that happened to be in private hands in 1933,
however. Much of the gold that is in the US gold reserves today is gold that
would have been paid out to the private sector had the US government not
reneged in its promises to pay war bonds in gold.
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The 1934 Default on
Gold-Based Liberty Bonds
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Every time there is a debate over the
so-called ???debt ceiling,??? various servants of the U.S. regime like Jerome Powell
or Janet Yellen claim that ???the United States has never defaulted.??? This is a
lie...
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This week's Market Update was
authored by Money Metals Contributor Ryan McMaken.
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