Bank Of England Essentially Admits Intervening In Gold Market

Whatever said about the BOE's Sneakiness is a Ditto for the US Government

Avery Goodman

The Bank of England claims to have about 10 million ounces of gold in its reserves. However, it refuses to disclose the amount of physical gold still in its vault, as opposed to gold that may now be owed to it by third parties. It reports all gold allegedly "in the vault" together with gold it has already swapped or leased to bullion banks, even though the latter type of gold is subject to counter party risk. For example, if the Bank of England had swapped or loaned out gold to MF Global, that gold would be lost forever, because the company has gone bankrupt.


James J. Bern is a citizen of England and a loyal subject of the Queen. He believes that government is by the People and for the People. Indeed, the right of Englishmen to elect representatives to Parliament, in one form or another, is now about 1,000 years old. Most Britons think as he does, and believe that they have a representative government. They do not realize that their nation's financial affairs are not controlled by the government, but, rather, by the banks. The British central bank is not controlled by an elected group of men. It is a club that is tightly connected to commercial banking interests.Even though Parliament is responsible for government, and the Bank of England is not, the bankers who run it appear to believe that their choice to engage in "gold market activities" amounts to a "government" policy.

Mr. Bern figured that citizens have to right to know about how their nations' gold was being used. He believed that the public ought to be told how much has been swapped or leased to commercial banks and how much is still in the vault. But, according to the Bank of England, he is wrong. Citizens have no right to know. Such knowledge would hurt the interests of "private customers" of the central bank, according to the bank. Mr. Bern was advised that no information about gold transactions would ever be disclosed, because such disclosure would hurt private banking interests and "government" financial interests.

The claim that disclosure would be detrimental to the government's "financial interests" is an interesting one. The only possible legitimate financial interest that the government might have in gold swapping and leasing would be if it earned some kind of return from engaging in such activities. But, the bank has not revealed that it earns any income at all from the gold activities. Instead, it simply wrote:

If we were to reveal how much gold has been swapped or is on loan on any given day in response to requests like this, then that would allow enquirers to find out what gold transactions have been taking place.

But, if a legitimate return on investment was being sought from otherwise inert stacks of gold, by means of leasing or swapping, don't citizens have a right to know how well the bank is doing its job? Don't they have a right to know whether the return is being maximized or not? God forbid that the People should know how the central bank is using their assets!

The bank also claims that public gold transactions are "private banking services". This is a ridiculous assertion, but it seems that the bank's staffers already know how spurious that claim actually is. They refused to disclose how they interpret the term "private banking services". But, any person of moderate intelligence, and certainly anyone trained in the law, knows that the leasing and swapping of publicly owned gold does not involve private banking services.

Some gold transactions are "private banking services". If Barclays (BCBAY.PK), JP Morgan (JPM), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) et. al. deliver and pay for the storage of gold, owned by the banks, in a vault owned by the Bank of England, the bank could legitimately invoke the private banking exception. But, Mr. Bern was not asking about third-party assets. He was asking about gold assets belonging to the State. Such transactions are not private, because they involve the creation of claims to public property... finish reading at source