Monday, November 30, 2009

How Dumb Can You Get?

"Buried in the Treasury's International Reserve Position report is an interesting bit of math. The document details the total amount, by weight, of the Treasury's gold reserves, plus a dollar value for said metal. But some fast division reveals something interesting: The Treasury marks the value of it gold at $42 an ounces, the price settled on in 1973, two years after the [US] scrapped the Bretton Woods System, which held gold at $35 an ounce for decades. ... If the Treasury's bling were valued at the spot price, we'd be sitting on a literal gold mine of nearly $288 billion. Why doesn't the Treasury account for the huge run-up in gold prices? ... And if the [US] were to dump its gold on the open market, there's no way we'd get today's spot rate. ... Raising the value of the Treasury's gold stockpile would have an inflationary effect, too, which is the last thing the [Fed] wants right now", my emphasis, Martha White (MW) at The Big Money, 4 November 2009, link: http://www.thebigmoney.com/print/4171.

Read MW's piece in its entirety. It's one of the worst pieces of analysis I've ever seen. The Treasury owns 261.5 million ounces of gold, no matter what price it puts on them! MW is so stupid, she could be a CPA! She must believe if you bought Exxon (XOM) decades ago at say $10 a share, it's "worth" $10 until you pick up the WSJ and see it's worth $75. Hmm, 261.5 million x $1,140 = $298.1 billion. MW, beg China to take all 261.5 milion ounces. How can revaluing gold be inflationary? It exists before and after revaluation. It's just accounting. It's Zimbabwe Ben (ZB) who prints dollars. How does MW know what ZB wants? Did she consult Ed McMahon's hermetically sealed mayonaisse jar?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

India buys gold from the IMF...

Uhmmm puzzle... the IMF wants countries to engage with its "Special Drawing Rights" so why sell gold?

And is all this a kabuki dance?

Mark Herpel said...

Excellent! Classic post! I love it.

I say (sarcastically) wait for $5-6K USD per oz and revalue the whole lot! Get rid of all that past debt!

Mark
editor@dgcmagazine.com

Anonymous said...

The article is unavailable at the site "due to technical difficulties."

John

Independent Accountant said...

Herpel:
Thanks. If you are not familar with Mike Rozeff, you should read his stuff. I've got a few links to his writings.

Anonymous:
I just clicked on the link and it worked.

IA

Independent Accountant said...

Herpel:
In rereading this post I now think MW is so stupid she could be the head of Citigroup. I have insulted my fellow CPAs intelligence by saying she could be one of us.

IA

Anonymous said...

C'mon IA...

Buiter goes to Citi...

And here is who he replaces there "...[Lewis] Alexander, who had worked at Citigroup since 1999, left in March to become a counselor on domestic finance issues to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

He was paid $2.4 million by Citigroup in 2008 and the first months of 2009, according to his financial-disclosure form filed with the Treasury. In December 2007, he predicted the U.S. would probably avoid a recession."...


Can you believe this? A "counselor" to Geithner?

Robyn said...

love your comment. if not citigroup, how about BofA?