Pure Gold and Soggy Dollars

We’re going to be introducing some new formats. One of them is quick article links, with the good ones labelled Pure Gold and the bad ones labelled Soggy Dollars.

Pure Gold

When a Fed-induced boom turns to bust: “In the lynch-mob atmosphere that inevitably follows the bust cycle of Fed-induced business cycles, it was not hard to convince Americans that the corporate bankruptcies and the subsequent recession were the handiwork of criminal executives.” Of course, this sentiment prevails today too. Look for the coming “corporate crime wave“.

A Soggy Dollar

The headline reads, “China Bought Gold With Proceeds From Record Sale Of US Treasurys”. It’s been in the news for a while: China is selling Treasurys (i.e. dollars). The PBoC is forced to sell dollars and buy yuan, to prevent a yuan crash as people are selling yuan. However, many mistake this for China “de-dollarizing” in favor gold.

According to this article, China sold $83B of Treasurys (i.e. dollars). And how much gold did they buy? Less than $600M, or 0.7%.

 

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5 replies
  1. Theosebes Goodfellow says:

    I concur completely. Say, isn’t China already on the “criminal company executive” kick? Seems they have one about once every two weeks or so. The difference being that they tend to shoot their “criminal company executives” when found automatically guilty.
    On a different note, do you have any opinions on Xi’s visit to the White House? There didn’t seem to be much press about that particular “historic” meeting.

  2. Greg Jaxon says:

    How much gold did they buy? Less than $600M, or 0.7%.

    According to the article they bought $2,600M or 3.1%, a much more normal portfolio allotment to physical gold. The amount was 600+ tons, which I think should have cost them:

    600tons x 2000lbs/ton x 16oz/lb x $1150 = $22.08B or 26.6%

    In any event, these numbers were all “official announcements” by PBoC which could mean nothing at all, since they have ample motive to lie through their teeth and no effective accountability if they choose to do so.

  3. jham says:

    Whoever it is bought between half a million and half a million and a half TROY ounces. $600+million U$D. There are 15 Troy british imperial whatever ounces equating to the United States pound unit of weight measurement. In the United States an ounce is 16 of something equating to the same 15 Troy ounces arriving at that same US pound unit of weight measurement. Obviously a forklift was involved.

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