No, wait. Germany has decided its gold is safe in American hands (I knew it was one of those).
Surging mistrust of the euro during Europe’s debt crisis fed a campaign to bring Germany’s entire $141 billion gold reserve home from New York and London. Now, after politics shifted in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition, the government has concluded that stashing half its bullion abroad is prudent after all.
“The Americans are taking good care of our gold… It’s my view that the gold reserves should be stored wherever they might be needed in an emergency.”
Strange. Stored abroad since the Cold War in case of a Soviet invasion, nearly half of Germany’s gold reserves are stored in the United States.
Stranger still: The Bundesbank or other independent auditors have never actually physically checked the gold’s authenticity or weight but have relied on “written confirmations by the storage sites” instead.
Now folks are starting to, you know, wonder (paranoia runs deep)? Hey, central banking at its best is all I can say. It’s not that we don’t trust you, it’s just that we don’t trust you.
“Ein Teil der Diskussion in Deutschland ist schon einigermaßen grotesk.”
Observing Hermann 