von Greyertz: New Revelations Support Concern That States' Gold is Gone

"Eric, Western central banks don't have the 23,000 tons of gold they say they have.  Eric Sprott has done great work in this area.  But this week we had more proof that the 23,000 tons of gold the West claims to possess is vastly overstated... Sweden has 125 tons of gold, but of that only 12% is held in Sweden. 61% of Sweden's gold is held by the Bank of England, 33% by the Bank of Canada, and 13% by the Fed. So, why is 88% of Swedish gold held abroad? For the simple reason that they are trading their gold within the LBMA market, and trading can mean anything from selling to leasing.

Then, on Wednesday of this week Finland announced that 96% of its gold is held outside of the country -- half in the UK, and the rest in Sweden, New York, and Switzerland. The Bank of Finland also admitted that half of the gold held in the UK is ‘invested.' One can probably assume that half of the gold held in the other countries is also ‘invested,' which means that 50% of Finland's gold is either sold, or leased to the market. Either way it's gone.