America's gold missing? Rumours may set the DOGE on gold reserves
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is on a cost-cutting mission, might be headed for Fort Knox, the ultra-secure facility that stores a large part of America's gold reserves. US President Donald Trump's MAGA base is rife with doubts whether Fort Knox really stores as much gold as it is supposed to. Muska dn Republican Senator Rand Paul have been drawn into these rumours.
"It would be great if @elonmusk could take a look inside Fort Knox just to make sure the 4,580 tons of US gold is there. Last time anyone looked was 50 years ago in 1974," an X used Zerohedge wrote. Musk said, "Surely it’s reviewed at least every year?" Zerohedge replied, "it should be. it isn't." Rand Paul, Republican Senator for Kentucky too replied to Musk, "Nope. Let’s do it."
Fort Knox houses gold reserves worth an estimated $425 billion though the book
value assessed by the government is $42.22 per ounce which has not been updated
for long.
Fort Knox was made popular by James Bond movie 'Goldfinger' in which the villain, gold magnate Auric Goldfinger, plans to break into the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox by releasing Delta-9 nerve gas into
the atmosphere, which causes unconsciousness for 24 hours.
Rand Paul's father, Ron Paul, a Republican congressman for Texas and three-time
presidential candidate, who had called for a return to linking the dollar to
gold, too had doubted if there’s any gold at the Fort Knox bullion depository.
Paul had told Bloomberg Businessweek in 2011 that the government “is asking the
American people to trust that all the gold is there, while not allowing site
visits and not publishing all the data.” However, Eric M. Thorson, the
inspector general of the Treasury, said he had seen and accounted for it all.
Fort Knox, America's impregnable gold storage
Constructed in the mid-1930s, Fort Knox has been off-limits to most people. As per United States Mint, Fort Knox is not a production facility but stores precious metal bullion reserves for the US.
Amount of gold stored at Fort Knox is 147.3 million ounces. About half of the
Treasury’s stored gold (as well as valuables of other federal agencies) is kept
here. Highest historic gold holdings was 649.6 million ounces in
1941. The only gold removed has been very small quantities used to test the purity of gold during regularly scheduled audits. Except for these samples, no gold has been transferred to or from the Depository for many
years.
The actual structure and content of the facility is known by only a few, and no
one person knows all the procedures to open the vault. The first gold arrived at
Fort Knox in 1937.
Fort Knox also stored the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill
of Rights during World War II to protect them from danger. In 1944, the
documents are returned to Washington, DC. Fort Knox has stored
valuable items for other government agencies, including the Magna Carta, and the crown, sword, scepter, orb, and cape of St. Stephen, King of Hungary before being returned to Hungary in 1978.
In 1974, Fort Knox broke from its strict no-visitors policy to allow a group of
journalists and a Congressional delegation into the vaults to view the gold
reserves. Then Treasury
Secretary allowed the visit when rumors
persisted that all the gold had been removed from the vaults. Previously, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only person other than authorized personnel to access the vaults.
In 2017, during the previous Trump administration, then Treasury Secretary
Steve Mnuchin, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, and Congressional representatives
visited the vaults. The vaults were opened to non-authorized
personnel for the first time since 1974.
Source: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/