This is really sneaky, burying the IMF gold-sale bit inside a bill for funding in Iraq and Afghanistan. Legislators have learned that voting the bill down because they're against the gold piece will get them hung out to dry, since they will be accused of voting against the Iraq/Afghanistan effort when re-election time rolls around. I hate it when they pull this stuff. They probably knew it wouldn't stand on its own and had to resort to dirty politics, imo, to finess the naysayers.

The Senate still has to approve it, but it looks like a foregone conclusion.

From Mineweb

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Obama Administration pushes IMF gold sales through House by tieing it to security bill

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill which included an expanded credit facility for the IMF and effective U.S. approval for the proposed IMF sale of 400 tons of gold.

Author: Lawrence Williams

Posted: Friday , 19 Jun 2009

FUNCHAL, MADEIRA -

The Obama administration has pushed a bill through the U.S. House of Representatives approving $106 billion in supplemental funding, primarily for the Iraq and Afghanistan 'security' efforts, but attached to it was also an expanded credit facility for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of a massive $108 billion which included an agreement to allow U.S,. members of the IMF Board to agree the proposed $13 billion sale of 400 tons of IMF gold to shore up its finances.

In theory the US. approval of the IMF gold sale, which still has to pass through the U.S. Senate would be the final hurdle in the gold sale actually going ahead. But despite this there was virtually little or no impact on the gold market. In part this may be because of scant publicity being given to this part of the funding approval, but also in that firstly the gold market has largely discounted the IMF gold sale anyway, and secondly in that the IMF has said it will dispose of its gold in an orderly manner through a system such as the Central Bank Gold Agreement which limits sales volumes in a given year.

The rest at the mineweb site:

http://www.mineweb.co.za/mineweb/vie...