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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Hunt who wrote (35924)	6/25/1999 8:33:00 PM
From: baystock	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116790

Looks like Britain is now a card carrying member of the banana republic club...it finds the holding of a total of $6 billion in gold reserves too onerous a burden on the tax payers. I think they should give up their permanent seat on the UN security council also, since the obligations arising from that must be too expensive also! I am not sure how they were able to afford the cost of their recent Kosovo adventures: Date: Fri Jun 25 1999 16:34 Sovereign (The reply: We're doing it for the taxpayer ) ID#275201: Copyright © 1999 Sovereign/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved THE ECONOMIC SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY ( Ms PATRICIA HEWITT ) "We continue to believe that gold is a valuable asset and that it performs an important role in countries' reserve assets, but it has to justify its share in terms of its contribution to the overall balance of risks in our reserve portfolio. A key objective in that portfolio management is to minimize the risk to the taxpayer of fluctuations in the value of the reserves.......Almost half of this country's net reserves have been held in the form of gold. Without taking a view on the prospects for gold, that is a very high exposure to a single asset. Reducing our gold holdings from 715 tonnes to some 300 tonnes over a number of years will gradually bring gold's share of the net reserves down to about one fifth. We believe that that will achieve a better balance in the portfolio......We will have a better diversified portfolio.....it is a simple portfolio decision, designed to reduce the risk borne by the British taxpayer........The decision to sell now was not motivated by any view that the gold price was about to fall further, or by any of the wilder fantasies that have been suggested......Of course we considered various routes for selling the gold before we decided that our auction programmme offered advantages of transparency, spreading sales out over a lengthy period. If we had sold outside an auction process we risked uncertainty over the timing of sales and much greater undermining of the gold price. If we had gone for covert sales on that scale, it is extremely likely that the sales would have been possible only at a discount to the market price.......The gold market has become increasingly sensitive to central bank sales in recent years......there would have been a real danger that the market would have realized that a major central bank was selling and would have over-reacted to the volumes actually sold. As the Governor of the Bank of England has indicated, even with the orderly and transparent procedure that we have adopted, the market reaction has been somewhat overdone."

To: John Hunt who wrote (35924)	6/25/1999 9:05:00 PM
From: Exsrch	Respond to of 116790

John, Kumchang-ri is not in the DMZ area and probably would not be helpful in supporting a invasion of South Korea. An invasion would most likely occur during the tail end of a moderate rainy season or in the begining or midst of a winter storm. The objective would be to take seoul and cross the Han River within 48 hours. North Korean invasion forces would not have time to take cover or refit. It would be a balls to the walls attack to destroy Korean Armor and bypass infantry stronghold and move south at all cost. The underground bunkers at the DMZ hold fortified arty position and enough supplies for an invasion; however, troops would not be able to use them for cover. Executing an invasion south is a tricky manuever that requires great execution (timeing), logistics, weather and alot of luck. US presence in south korea would be insignificant to alter the outcome. They are only the trip wire needed to assure future US involvement if North Korea does attack. The Gold Price Monitor is not a great place for this discussion; however, if you are interested send me a private note. Exsrch P.S. I am south of Ottawa