18 August 1988: Silver and Gold

via "iconic"; BBC discussion of the above.

update below



Overheard elsewhere:

Tony Loudermilk: In 1971 I believe that Russia USSR had an enormous amount of silver overhanging the market. Perhaps after the indictments came down and Hunt was locked down from trading they were persuaded by Smiley's People to dump some of it onto the market???

2 hours ago ·
Lord McCracken:
Might very well be. The unstated secret of the precious metals market is that AT ANY TIME they want, the world's major economies can crash them simply by dropping a couple of percents (even 1% with gold) of their own holdings onto them. (In the case of gold, the private market (the place where they get to price of gold from) only has 1% of the world's gold. The rest is held by governments. If those government were to decide to drop even 1% of their holdings into that market, it would DOUBLE the amount of gold there, and the market would IMMEDIATELY crash.)



Are any of these things true? How would I know? Still, it makes sense to be a bit skeptical of people flogging the collapse meme, especially when they also collect ad revenue for their web site from people selling silver and gold, or they themselves are touting a newsletter, or what have you.

All I know is, if Gorn had me cornered I'd fight back. Not because I think I'm as cool as Captain Kirk, I'm not, but because I don't think I could outrun Gorn after years of eating so much yummy processed food. Besides, America is where I keep all my stuff, and I don't trust that smooth talking Picard.

update: A kindly anonymous commenter shares this Wiki link regarding the world's gold reserves, wherein it states that governments hold approximately 18% of the world's gold.