The reservation of gold in central bank 2011

The reservation of gold in central bank 2011
The reservation of gold in central bank 2011

SEEING WASHINGTON'S belligerence over how Beijing pegs the price of its Yuan, three unsettling facts are buried amongst the latest central-bank gold data compiled by the World Gold Council...

• Central banks worldwide grew their physical gold reserves at the fastest pace since 1965 in 2009, adding bullion for the first time in two decades as a group;
• Emerging economies added a near-record volume of metal to their official reserves, putting more than 21% of all the gold held by sovereign states outside the control of developed-world OECD members;
• Western central banks, in contrast, shrank their reserves by more than 1% last year. Since the end of 2004, they have sold almost twice-as-much gold as non-OECD members have acquired (1881 vs. 994 tonnes).

As the gold-bug's Golden Rule says, "He who has the gold makes the rules" – an historic fact proven by the United States' own dominance of world finance and politics since the end of WWII.

And now that Congress is threatening trade sanctions against China for under-valuing its currency, the Yuan, Washington might want to take note of how its Dollar came to be the world's No.1 currency.