From today's GATA website. Gold manipulation by central banks pretty much confirmed.
"Western government and central bank officials discussed coordinating their gold market policies at a private meeting of the G-10 Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee in April 1997, according to minutes of the meeting released to GATA today by the Federal Reserve Board upon the order of a federal court. The minutes also quote a U.S. delegate as warning that a rising gold price would increase the U.S. government's debt burden.
The document was only one of many whose release was sought by GATA in its freedom-of-information lawsuit against the Fed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The judge, Ellen Segal Huvelle, ruled two weeks ago that other documents containing the Fed's gold-related secrets were exempt from disclosure under the law.
The G-10 committee minutes were compiled by New York Fed official Dino Kos and were transmitted to the Fed's Board of Governors by Edwin M. Truman, then director of the Fed's International Finance Division and a participant in the meeting.
They quote a British delegate as saying that while the gold price seemed "sluggish," the gold market itself was actually showing "resilience" and "physical demand is high." The British delegate described the gold market as "traditionally secretive."
The minutes show committee members acknowledging the heavy involvement of central banks in gold leasing, with the British delegate estimating that a year's worth of gold production already had been sold forward. That was 14 years ago and of course much central bank gold leasing followed until the last year or so.
According to the minutes, the U.S. delegate cited above -- apparently Richard W. Fisher, lately president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas -- also warned that central bank gold sales and leasing might be construed as positive for gold. The minutes say: "First, he noted that some market cynics viewed central bank activity as a contrary indicator and therefore one had to be conscious of possible feedback effects. Second, he noted that the price of gold, unlike other commodities, had historically not trended toward the cost of production. This seemed to suggest an ongoing supply/demand imbalance. Third, he had the sense that the gold leasing market was an important component in this puzzle, though he did not understand enough about that market, particularly the credit risk aspects of gold lending."
A Canadian delegate, the minutes say, wondered whether data about the gold market could be trusted -- a point much pressed by GATA and others lately."
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