Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- I'm curious the reason why it was ever held in the US and Canadaby ktallett
- Could be due to the fact that before 1970s the currency was backed by Gold and they had it in US to easily convert it to USD if needed
- (another guess) to convert to dollars, the gold would need to be delivered to the custody of the US Fed, which is easiest when the bars are physically in the Fed's vault. in a low-trust situation, you have all the gold in your own country, but then its so much leas liquid bc you need to physically deliver it to trading partners, or they must trust your accounting of their share in your vault.by clbrmbr
- I would assume WWII and the Cold War?by antonymoose
- > I'm curious the reason why it was ever held in the US and Canada
Random Educated Guess; Probably part of some show of mutual trust to cement a treaty or other agreement, made way back when allied governments could mostly trust one another to hold to such agreements somewhat reliably?
by blooalien - Makes trade easier than shifting currency. It’s also more stable and liquid if you need to make things happen in an emergency.by greggsy
- Makes it harder to steal.
Don't forget that the European continent has had wars almost non-stop for centuries. It is a good strategy to place your gold in a location that has not seen much action in the past 250 years.
by artisinal - It's mostly historical and a combination of security from the WW2 and Cold War eras as well as how the gold standard worked before Bretton Woods.
Most countries held gold reserves as their currencies were backed by it. When money needed to move because of trade, the ratios of currencies backed by gold would shift as money got converted to other currencies. However, constantly moving physical gold back and forth with the ebs and flows of trade was impractical, so ownership of gold in central bank vaults usually just had its legal ownership marked on ledgers. Physical gold moving was more part of reconciliation. This description is an oversimplification as in practice, countries didn't always play by the rules of the gold standard (revaluations, going on and off the standard, etc), but you get the general idea.
This mostly ended as Bretton woods came into effect and the new system was basing the US dollars on gold, then other countries held direct US dollars and traded that instead. Countries could then convert those US dollars into gold. This ended when Nixon closed the gold window when he refused to raise interest rates as there started to be a run on gold as countries rushed to convert. The backdrop was that high spending on the Vietnam was and new social programs was driving inflation, but Nixon knew that would cause an economic slowdown he wasn't willing to do. Jimmy Carter then took a lot of the political flack for allowing the central bank to raise rates to kill it. This is why central bank independence is so important.
During times of geopolitical risk, countries would physically move their gold to be held in trust in friendly and/or rule of law countries. The USA was seen as this between ~1914-now.
by hylaride - Besides the reasons listed by the others, this also a matter of relationships as there a deep ties between these nations and the Netherlands. Without the Dutch financing the Americans, America would not have been able to become independent from the English. The Dutch were also the first country on earth to acknowledge America's independence [1][2], costing them a war with the pissed England [3].
There are a lot of Dutch people living in Canada.[4]
1. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_de_Graaff>_____2. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Salute>
by exceptione - Just a reminder: The Netherlands' 612 tonnes represent 0.28% of all gold ever mined and 1.7% of central bank reserves. Because gold is insanely dense (19.32 g/cm³), all the gold mined in human history fits into about ~340 shipping containers
A standard 24,000-TEU cargo ship could hold every ounce of humanity's gold using under 1.5% of its physical volume.
So the Dutch portion is a rounding error of global gold that fits in a single shipping container.
- That shipping container could not be easily lifted, right? The bottom would simply rip off under so much weight.by inglor_cz
- This is all about Greenland and reducing leverage Trump might wield to get it, right?
They can't say that, it just gets them into a pissing match with Trump and what good is that but it's not hard to read between the lines.
I also do wonder if the Netherlands knows anything more about CozyBear/FancyBear and the 2016 election than they've let on. ( https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/rare-insight-cyber-espiona... )
by gregw2 - by mschuster91
- Dutch central bank moves share of gold from U.S., Canada to Londonby retired
- They want to see how much of it is gold plated tungsten, good for them!by le-mark
- That only gets discovered when all of it is pulled
If there is dodgy stuff happening in the US it makes sense to keep the grift going as long as possible
by Havoc - Gold-pressed latinum, you say?
- Gotta prepare for the US vs Europe war over Greenland!
see:
>“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace,” he wrote, adding that the US needed “complete and total control” of Greenland.
not quite sure what's up with this timeline.
by tim333 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49573455
Why are European countries moving their gold out of North America?
- The Dutch transfer out of Canada is minimal and pretty much a token amount. Most gold has been transfered out of the USA.
As for why, the American people elected Donald Trump for a second time and the recent trade wars have helped spread the notion that maybe the USA cannot be trusted by its supposed allies as much as it once could be.
by jeroenhd - I am dutch and read the news this week but I found it weird that a part of it went to England. I was expecting a European country.by ivolimmen
- The narrative is that the continent is going to be overrun by Russia (at the rate of mile per year like in Ukraine). So the elites think they need the gold in London to pay for their exile government luxury.by a3qhg
- England is definitely a European country. I'm tired of people constantly making this political abuse of language of conflating "the EU" with "Europe".
(And yes, saying "America" for "US of A" annoys me too. First step towards losing an imperialist state of mind is letting people from Canada and Brazil be in America).
by wazoox - I’m surprised why they don’t just move it back to their own country and put it in a safe in Netherland.
- England is a country in Europe.by retired
- England is a European country. Just not EU.by wolvoleo
- London has an old school gold exchange. Pretty much you can buy and sell by moving a part between vaults (at least that's how I understood it to work in the past). Now I expect it to be just a spreadsheet but who knows.by consp
- Their goal isn't only safe storage, it's also being able to sell when needed.
You can't quickly trade with the gold that's in their own safe storage facility in Zeist, because you would need to physically transport it. The reserve at the Bank of England is put there because there is a large market for gold trading there. So you can use the gold immediately to influence the markets.
Putting it in a safe place in another European country wouldn't have added value over storage in Zeist.
by t0mas88 - Interestingly, 59 tonnes of gold was sold in USA and bought in London. So that means perhaps "Somebody" transferred 59 tonnes of their gold holdings to the USA.. who was that?
This is similar to what the French did last year.
The other thing I noticed, is that as the article chose to mention:
> Gold that is held with the Bank of England must meet modern international trade standards
with implication being that the gold it previously held in the USA was not meeting those standards, but is that just journalistic fluff? what are those standards? (could be exact weights in g rather than purity?)
NB the Netherlands still has >200 tonnes of gold held in the USA & Canada.
by clort - USA & Canada
I know the above was in the article, but please never mention the US and Canada in the same breath. Please.
That & symbol just irritates.
From a Canadian's perspective, it's like mentioning a sophisticated, decent human being, and a slimy smarmy used car salesman, in the same breath.
Please.
by b112