Thursday, Nov 08, 2007
Gordon Browns gold sales in 1999
Safe Haven: Gold as an Alternative Investment
Gordon Brown (now Prime Minister) of Britain sold 415 tonnes of gold, almost 60% of its total reserves, leaving Britain with only 300 tonnes. 11 days earlier, Brown had requested the IMF to sell $10 billion of its gold on the open market too. So far no real reason has been officially offered for selling gold in such a hurry.
Posted by sold 2 rent 1 @ 11:30 AM (942 views) Add Comment
10 Comments
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1. sold 2 rent 1 said...
When recently Prime Minister Brown was asked again the reason of such bizarre sale, his answer was simply a decision of money management at that time. But this act is totally against any common sense of money management and the normal approach by CBs to sell their gold. The only likely logic reason was to knock gold price down in a very short time by dumping so much gold at once. According to Mr. Schoon, it is rumored that British was acting probably in a joined effort with US Fed to save a large Wall St bullion bank which had a 1,000 tonne short gold position loaned by the US government. And it was at the brink of disaster when gold took an unexpected rise at that time in 1999 and the tide was turning against them. If true, this bailout is no different than LTCM and the current subprime bailouts, except the US government had absolutely no choice in this case since it had to rescue the bank and get its gold back.
2. Ticktock said...
If it ever comes to light that Brown gave away England's Gold to save a Yankee Wall St. Bank, then the Queen should dissolve parliament instantly and charge Brown (and the rest of them) with High Treason.
3. japanese uncle said...
Another case of assets changing hands from the state to the powerful financiers?
4. george monsoon said...
this is worrying..
5. dohousescrashinthewoods said...
This sort of thing had crossed my mind. A government buys votes by selling policy. Seems par for the course if you assume a corrupt world. Not a nice thought. Zimbabwe here we come..
6. d'oh said...
What I want to know is what Britain got in return, if anything?
7. inbreda said...
free tickets to an immoral war
8. cornishman said...
I can't remember where now, but I read somewhere recently that Brown gave several days public notice that he was intending to sell such a large amount and so drove down the price before he actually did sell it.
9. d'oh said...
Cornishman: He most certainly did. It was flabbergasting. I wanted to buy at the time, but was a poor academic and had no significant funds.
Inbreda: The thing is that TB had to write to the Americans to complain that BP wasn't getting any of the action. And by the way, the tickets weren't free :-(
10. harold said...
"Another case of assets changing hands from the state to the powerful financiers?"
Absolutely. Transer all the gold to private hands, then shaft the fiat currency. GB is NWO.