The World Gold Council regularly updates the stats on official holdings of central bank reserves. According to December 2008 data from the WGC, the U.S. holds 8,133.5 tonnes (metric tons) of gold. The IMF holds 3,217.3 tonnes.

the united states no longer holds 8133 tons of gold. how much is left is anyone's guess since it has not been audited for more than 50 years. while other central banks publicize gold sales, the us says that it never sells gold, maintaining the fiction that the 8133 tons still exist. in reality, much of the gold has been leased out, and then sold, and is gone.

the fact that the us has been covertly leasing gold to suppress the price is no longer just conspiracy theory. aside from 90% coin melt from the 1930's showing up in the middle east, we have an admission from a former assistant secretary of the treasury that the us has been leasing gold.

the link at the bottom goes to an article by paul craig roberts. it's just another reason to own precious metals and mining shares. a lot of the supposed gold and silver in the world are just derivatives, and the real metal is long gone.

If the dollar loses its reserve currency role, foreigners will not accept dollars in exchange for real things. This event would be immensely disruptive to an economy dependent on imports for its energy, its clothes, its shoes, its manufactured products, and its advanced technology products.

If incompetence in Washington, the type of incompetence that produced the current economic crisis, destroys the dollar as reserve currency, the “unipower” will overnight become a third world country, unable to pay for its imports or to sustain its standard of living.

How long can the US government protect the dollar’s value by leasing its gold to bullion dealers who sell it, thereby holding down the gold price? Given the incompetence in Washington and on Wall Street, our best hope is that the rest of the world is even less competent and even in deeper trouble. In this event, the US dollar might survive as the least valueless of the world’s fiat currencies.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts0...