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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWith Eye on Fiscal Armageddon, Texas Set to 'Repatriate' Its Gold To New Texas Fort Knox
On Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation that will create a state-run gold depository in the Lone Star State one that will attempt to rival those operated by the U.S. government inside Fort Knox and the Federal Reserve Bank of New Yorks vault in lower Manhattan. The Texas Bullion Depository, Abbott said in a statement, will become the first state-level facility of its kind in the nation, increasing the security and stability of our gold reserves and keeping taxpayer funds from leaving Texas to pay for fees to store gold in facilities outside our state. Soon, Abbotts office said, the state will repatriate $1 billion of gold bullion from the Federal Reserve in New York to Texas. In other words, when it comes preparing for the currency collapse and financial armeggedon, Abbott's office really seems to think Texas is a whole 'nother country.
And the new depository will not just be a well-guarded warehouse for that bullion. The law Abbott signed calls for the creation of an electronic payments system that will allow gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium depositors to write checks against their accounts, making the depository into a bank one that will create a metal-backed money supply intended to challenge the paper currency issued by the Federal Reserve - or "Yankee dollars" as one of the law's top supporters calls them. And in case the Fed or Obama wants to confiscate Texas's gold, nice try Fed and Obama! In keeping with this suspicion of the Fed and Washington, the new law also explicitly declares that no governmental or quasi-governmental authority other than an authority of [Texas] will be allowed to confiscate or freeze an account inside the depository. Gold thats entrusted to Texas will stay in Texas.
The depository law is the brainchild of a second-term state representative in the Texas legislature named Giovanni Capriglione, a 42-year-old Republican from Southlake, just northwest of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. A private equity manager with an MBA, Capriglione was elected in 2012 after beating an seven-term incumbent with the backing of Tea Party activists. He told the Star-Telegram that when he first announced his interest in establishing a depository in Texas in 2013, he got so many emails and phone calls from people literally all over the world who said they want to store their gold
in a Texas depository. People have this image of Texas as big and powerful
so for a lot of people, this is exactly where they would want to go with their gold. On his official Facebook page, Capriglione said he has just been overwhelmed with all of the contacts and write-ups and interviews hes gotten.
Fed critics herald Caprigliones bill as a long-awaited and much-needed assault on the governments printing press. Ryan McMaken at the libertarian Mises Institute (named after Austrian economist Ludwig Von Mises) wrote that while the Texas depository is a government-owned enterprise, it nevertheless is an improvement since it is a case of decentralization (and arguably nullification) that will present alternatives to the Federally-controlled monetary and banking systems. In what Capriglione the depository bills sponsor called an easy to read summary of the specifics of the law, a Tea Party site described the depository as a game changer. The author of the piece, a metals dealer named Franklin Sanders, wrote that since at least 1991 I have firmly believed that whenever an electronic payments system could be established using silver & gold, it could supplant fiat currencies worldwide within two years at most, less time given a crisis. Now Texas steps forward to make it stick. And if Texas has the nerve to carry though, it will make Texas a center of world finance to rival New York and London better than Switzerland, because it contains 27,695,284 Texans and all but two of em are armed & serious. (Sanders favors the term Yankee dollars to describe paper currency.)
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/with-eye-on-fiscal-armageddon-texas-set-to-repatriate-its-gold-to-new-texas-fort-know
jwirr
(39,215 posts)that Ron Paul talks about all the time on TV.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)they are likely to bring it on themselves.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)exactly what they are doing. It is not surprising that this is coming just when the preachers and the Texas congress critters are calling for their people to ignore the ruling of the SCOTUS if it comes down on the side of equal rights for homosexual persons.
And of course they think they are backed up by the coming rapture.
Think of their situation if they should ever succeed in leaving the USA. The military bases and the money they bring in will not go with them. They will be closed and dismantled. Moved to the new border area.
According to the water depletion map shown on DU yesterday they are out of water in their aquifers . And they are either having flash floods or droughts. And that does not even take into account that they have their share of other natural disasters.
They are creating their own border patrol or at least I heard they are but once the US steps back to the new border Texas will be on their own against Mexico.
And that does not even take into account the federal programs that help subsidize every state through programs that help the poor, the schools etc. Nor does it take into account that many of the citizens of their state will leave because they do not want to secede.
kentauros
(29,414 posts)(that aren't armed and "serious."
I wonder how long it'll be before someone, somewhere is determined to be holding precious-metals in this reserve that also has ties to known terrorists. Because that might be all it takes for the Feds to step in and confiscate it
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)First of all, Switzerland is a bunker of a country,with a military so well armed that many veterans serve as Mercenaries, just like they did in the old days. Part of the reason they became the "peaceful" country is because no one else in Europe really wanted to fight them anymore.
Second, if you did break away, The Chinese and Russians would be at your neck. They would use Mexico as the proxy, but suddenly Mexico would have all that nice military gear and financial support. The Swiss would also send some love their way, since you made it clear that you wanted to challenge them. Many of the state that have the misfortune to be your neighbors would pop champagne, many in Oklahoma and Louisiana would be happy to see you gone, and gladly have a nice fence put up, to keep YOU out.
Now by you, I know you do not speak for all of Texas. Heaven knows that if Molly Ivins were still alive, she would attack you with a rage and grace I cannot hope to touch. Indeed, we will pretty much welcome Austin refugees and other leftists. However, to those Texas separatists, we have gotten tired of you telling us how to run things, infecting us with your Bush family, ruining our textbooks and being the overall loud jerk of the family, all the while demanding much much more Tax pork than you put in. The day you act on your threats is the day when many of us say "Sorry, have a nice life."
Maybe we will just invade YOU for your oil, it is not like we cannot make it a humanitarian effort, one that many might sympathize with.
daredtowork
(3,732 posts)DetlefK
(16,423 posts)"The German government has been storing about half of its gold supply with the US FED, apparently in the NYC FED vaults. Germany decided to bring home all its gold, but the FED has said that isnt possible to do, and it would need until 2020 to be able to accomplish the transfer.
The German government then asked to visit the FED vaults to inventory the gold and determine its actual existence, but the FED refused to permit Germany to examine its own gold. The reasons given were security and no room for visitors. And nothing else.
Germany did finally send some staff to the FED, and they were permitted only into the vaults anteroom where they were shown 5 or 6 gold bars as representative of their holdings, and were permitted nothing else.
They apparently came a second time, and the FED did open only one of 9 rooms and let the Germans look at the stack of gold, but were not permitted to either enter or touch. And they returned home.
There has been speculation for a long time, that the FED doesnt actually have much gold, that it has either sold it off, lent it out, or used it as collateral for borrowings. Either case, there are many claims that the gold that is being stored on behalf of many nations, doesnt actually exist.
And nobody, other than FED staff, have actually been permitted inside the vaults to see or inventory any of the gold. There is no evidence that the gold actually exists, other than the word of the FED.
Even more, the situation is the same with the supposed gold depository at Fort Knox. Nobody has seen the gold there for a very long time."
...
"During the past two years, several US politicians have claimed that there is a high chance that neither Fort Knox nor the FED have any gold, or perhaps only a very small amount, and have demanded a full and public inventory and testing, but the FED have resolutely refused."
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IF (a big fat IF) Germany ever gets its gold back from Fort Knox, it will most likely be the ukrainian gold the US flew out of Kiev.
It's exactly the same scenario as a Wall Street bank speculating with ten times more money than they actually have.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)that some, or much, of the gold supposedly in storage has been sold to investors and collectors in the form of gold bullion and gold commemorative coins? Since 1980, when the American Arts series of gold medals were first struck, until today, the US mints have produced millions and millions of troy ounces of gold coins. Where did that gold come from?
Maybe this is territory.
Or maybe it isn't:
"On April 19, 1978, the United States Treasury Department announced that a portion of the national gold stockpile was to be auctioned through the General Services Administration (GSA) beginning on May 23, 1978, in the form of 400 troy ounces (12 kg) bars.[1] According to the Treasury, the sales were intended to "reduce the U.S. trade deficit, either by increasing the exports of gold or by reducing the imports of this commodity",[1] and to "further the U.S. desire to continue progress toward the elimination of the international monetary role of gold."[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Arts_Commemorative_Series_medallions
jwirr
(39,215 posts)not permitted to keep the gold but sells it to the US government. He bought the mines the harvest what little was left in them and make jewelry but that did not pan our because of this rule. He was lucky there were also crystals in the mine so he makes jewelry out of them.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)at Fort Knox.?
Be a miracle if Texas gets ANY gold back.
Amishman
(5,559 posts)after the strangeness with the German gold, i think there is something rotten at the NY Fed. Texas might be doing us all a favor and expose what could be one of the greatest thefts of all time.
I see this as a win-win.
If the gold is there, we get to laugh at Texas for being paranoid
If the gold isn't there, the game is up and hopefully come crooks get what is coming to them.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)I wonder how much of that is loans from Social Security? And we are all left with IOUs for IOUs?
JHB
(37,166 posts)...'s politically-connected contractors. Who gets to build it? Who's brother gets a job on that company's board? Who gets the contract to provide security? What kind of speaking fees will they pay Abbott and Capriglione after they're out of office. Will they even bother waiting until they're out of office?
Grifters gonna grift, and suckers are gonna get sucked.
tanyev
(42,677 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/article22707600.html#storylink=cpy
hack89
(39,171 posts)MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)jmowreader
(50,601 posts)Article 1, Section 10: No state will coin money. Which is EXACTLY what Capriglione's bill is attempting to do.