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Comment by rsanek | Hacker News Reader

For those seeking a more level-headed view, the Fed reports on foreign-owned gold monthly. Going back a couple of decades:

  Month       Book value ($M)  Tonnes
  July 2006   8,967            6,606
  July 2011   8,412            6,197
  July 2016   7,883            5,807
  July 2021   7,794            5,742
  July 2026   7,812            5,755

The linked report is talking about a change of 1.5% from the latest-reported total amount in tonnes.

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Is it "level headed" to ignore the concerns of somebody pulling their gold out, even if they are a small country?

Your figures do point out that the Netherlands's amount of gold is small, but it is not level headed to think that they are somehow alone or unrepresentative of far more countries with far more gold.

Does this mean a net of 13% of foreign gold has been removed from the U.S. since 2006?

July 2021 7,794 5,742 July 2026 7,812 5,755

Gold prices have exploded between these two dates. Am I missing something?

The table says book value. So might not be the market value of gold.

The US government value of gold is hard pegged to $42/oz since 1973. Off by a factor of about 100 from market prices.

What is the value of this? Clearly the US won't sell me gold for $42/oz or the arbitragers would own the country, and nobody will sell the US gold for that amount ... so what does the $42/oz "peg" actually mean?

If you're familiar with par value, it's the same thing. It's a measure to account for changes in asset holdings over time while neglecting changes in market value of that asset. They could have just used ounces to do the same thing here. It made more sense when there was a dollar peg.

Bruh, this is not about the amount of gold involved.

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