Washington, D.C. (December 14, 2023) – As central banks across the globe continue to scoop up gold bullion for their reserves at record rates, U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) is asking Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell some pressing questions about gold.
Gold currently trades at all-time highs in most currencies. Market insiders claim that Germany’s Bundesbank is again seeking to repatriate some of its gold vaulted with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The Fed recently refused to respond to inquiries from the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee about whether any foreign gold had been repatriated this year.
In 2013, the Bundesbank asked the New York Fed to return 300 tonnes of its gold, but the bank inexplicably took more than three years to fulfill the request.
This incident raised the doubts about the status and security of foreign gold vaulted with the New York Fed, since Germany’s gold had been assumed to be held unencumbered and in a segregated area within the Fed’s vault.
This week, Rep. Mooney wrote to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell as follows:
I remain interested in the Federal Reserve’s activities with respect to the gold market. The gold price – now hitting all-time highs – is in some ways a report card on your management of the current system of unbacked Federal Reserve notes and bank credit.
I am increasingly concerned that actions by the Fed, the U.S. Treasury, and deficit spenders in Congress have undermined the world’s confidence in our currency, making our nation more financially vulnerable – to say nothing of the impact of inflation on our own citizens.
Please respond in writing to the following questions no later than January 15, 2024:
- Has the Federal Reserve or the Federal Reserve Bank of New York repatriated any gold to foreign nations this year? If so, to which countries and how much?
- How much gold is the Federal Reserve vaulting for foreign nations now and how does this compare to the amount vaulted at the end of 2022?
- Does the New York Fed’s statement of November 9 asserting that the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department did not intervene in the foreign exchange markets during the July-September 2023 quarter cover the gold market as well? (See https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/markets/2023/20231109)
Mooney’s question about Federal Reserve interventions in the gold market echo concerns raised by some traders and policy makers that the Fed may be surreptitiously managing the gold price. The central bank has disclosed its interventions in many other markets, but it has not admitted to gold interventions.
“Americans deserve to know more details about the status and use of U.S. gold reserves and all other aspects of government gold activities, particularly as runaway debt and deficits combined with weaponization of the SWIFT payments system threaten the world’s confidence in the Federal Reserve note,” said Stefan Gleason, president and CEO of Money Metals Exchange.
Rep. Mooney has long been a leader on a sound money issues in Congress, having introduced reforms such as the Gold Reserves Transparency Act, the Monetary Metals Tax Neutrality Act, the Gold Standard Restoration Act, and the Digital Dollar Pilot Prevention Act.
A copy of Mooney’s letter to the Federal Reserve can be found here.
