Here's something regarding yesterday's German Press Agency report quoting the Bundesbank as saying that small shipments repatriating Germany's gold from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are "preferred for security reasons" --
http://www.gata.org/node/13606
-- a report that included an assertion attributed to the German newspaper Handelsblatt that "insurers will cover gold shipments only by air, not by ship, and will not insure shipments of more than 1 tonne at a time."
GATA's friend and consultant R.M. observes:
"I was just thinking. ...
"There are 295 tonnes of German gold still to move from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to Frankfurt under the Bundesbank's plan to repatriate 300 of its 1,500 tonnes at the New York Fed by 2020. Five tonnes are reported to have been transferred already.
"There are 307 weeks from now until January 1, 2020.
"If the Bundesbank plans taking until 2020 to repatriate the German gold, that would mean flying an average of 1 tonne of gold per week from New York to Frankfurt every week between now and 2020, or 50 flights per year with two weeks of down time per year.
"That is crazy and a security nightmare in itself, since it would establish a routine pattern of gold flights between the same destinations. So the Bundesbank's explanation for the slow pace of its gold repatriation from the New York Fed looks even more bogus."
Of course that Western central banks are generally so secretive about their gold reserves and particularly about their gold swaps and loans --
http://www.gata.org/node/12016
-- is confirmation in itself that central banks are doing things with gold for which they fear accounting to their publics and the market. No one who disparages complaints of gold market manipulation by central banks has ever tried extracting critical documentation about gold from a central bank or has tried putting to a central bank a critical question about gold as GATA often has done. Indeed, no one who disparages complaints of gold market manipulation by central banks, including self-styled experts, has ever reviewed and disputed any of the extensive documentation:
http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21
