*** Video of Thursday's Ron Paul Congressional Subcomittee hearing on the U.S. gold reserve ***



Gold encumbrances question elicits only hearsay at Paul committee hearing

By: Chris Powell,
Secretary/Treasurer, GATA
Friday, 24 June 2011

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver):

The inspector general of the U.S. Treasury Department today testified to a House subcommittee hearing on the U.S. gold reserve that he has been "told" that "not one troy ounce is encumbered," but under questioning he could not say where the gold pledged by the United States to the International Monetary Fund resides or how it has been accounted for, if at all.

The hearing was held in Washington by the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology on legislation proposed by the committee's chairman, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, to audit the U.S. gold reserve. (See http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h1495/text ) Paul opened the hearing with an excellent statement about the secrecy that long has enveloped the U.S. gold reserve, the speculation that U.S. gold has been swapped with foreign central banks or sold, and the inability to arrange a congressional inspection of the gold reserve at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Paul particularly distinguished between ownership of gold reserves and mere custody of them. He complained that the Treasury Department had not released certain information about the gold reserve until his legislation to audit it was filed.

The Treasury Department's inspector general, Eric M. Thorson, replied that Treasury audits the gold regularly, and he denounced those who raise doubts about the reserve.

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Missouri, noted that the audit documentation submitted to the committee by the Treasury mentioned nothing about encumbrances of the gold reserve, and Thorson replied, "I'm not aware of anything." But Thorson backed off when Luetkemeyer followed up by asking about the U.S. gold pledged to the IMF and when Paul asked if the IMF's supposed gold is being counted twice, once on the IMF's own books and again on the books of the United States and other IMF member nations.

Three years ago GATA pressed the IMF for straight answers to this very question, particularly as to the possession and location of the IMF's supposed gold, eliciting only evasion and then abrupt termination of the questioning:

http://www.gata.org/node/6242

Thorson replied weakly to Paul, "We do not audit the IMF."

Luetkemeyer wouldn't let go. Is the U.S. gold contribution to the IMF, he asked Thorson, counted in the U.S. gold reserve? If it is, Luetkemeyer added, audits of the U.S. gold reserve should record the gold as encumbered.

Thorson replied, "We've been assured that none of it is encumbered." But he added that he would have to research the question before providing a definitive answer.

Of course testimony that one has been "told" and "assured" that nothing is happening is only hearsay, and authoritative answers to questions about the U.S. gold reserve and the U.S. government's officially designated agency for surreptitious market intervention, the Exchange Stabilization Fund, probably can be obtained only from the treasury secretary or the president themselves, who under the law have exclusive control of the ESF and answer to no one for it:

http://www.gata.org/node/10009

Much of today's hearing dealt tediously with procedures for assaying and tallying gold bars, which would seem relevant to the question of surreptitious market manipulation only if gold bars in the U.S. reserve have been replaced with tungsten or other base-metal bars coated with gold -- not that a government that establishes an agency precisely to rig markets surreptitously should be given a pass on even the wildest questions.

While the Treasury's having given the Federal Reserve certificates for the gold that was taken from the Fed to the Treasury in 1933 has always seemed to have little meaning, both Thorson and the hearing's other witness, Gary T. Engel, director of financial management and assurance for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, testified that the Fed could never use the certificates to reclaim the gold. They said that any presentation by the Fed of the gold certificates to the Treasury would result only in the Treasury's paying the Fed in dollars at the statutory rate of $42.22 per ounce.

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-New York, whose work on the committee consists largely of making excuses for the Obama administration and the status quo, made a pompous idiot of herself, arriving in the middle of the hearing and asking the witnesses if they didn't think that Paul's gold reserve audit legislation would duplicate the audits already being done and cost a lot of money. The witnesses had said so in their opening statements and in responses to earlier questions from committee members who arrived on time.

It's not clear where, if anywhere, Paul will take the issue of potential encumbrances on the U.S. gold reserve. But since the most relevant testimony on the issue today was only hearsay, not authoritative, all questions remain open.

The hearing lasted a bit more than an hour and the subcommittee has posted video of it @: http://tiny.cc/e40zj

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

http://news.goldseek.com/GATA/1308895620.php