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G-10 minutes from 1997 show central bankers conspiring about gold

Section: Daily Dispatches

3:43p MT Friday, February 18, 2011

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver):

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, identified only as "Fisher" -- apparently Peter R. Fisher, head of open market operations and foreign exchange trading for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York -- 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.

U.S. delegate Fisher, the minutes say, "explained that U.S. gold belongs to the Treasury. However, the Treasury had issued gold certificates to the Reserve Banks, and so gold (by these means) also appears on the Federal Reserve balance sheet. If there were to be a revaluation of gold, the certificates would also be revalued upwards; however [to prevent the Fed's balance sheet from expanding] this would lead to sales of government securities. So the net benefit to Treasury would need to be carefully calculated, since sales of government securities would expand the public portfolio of government securities and hence also expand the Treasury's debt-servicing burden."

This seems to be as candid an acknowledgement as any of the U.S. government's profound interest in suppressing the price of gold.

Two years after the G-10's Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee discussed coordinating Western central bank policies toward gold, most of those central banks announced just such a formal mechanism of cooperation, the Washington Agreement on Gold:

http://www.ecb.int/press/pr/date/1999/html/pr990926.en.html

The minutes of the April 1997 meeting of the G-10 Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee, which the Fed sought to conceal, along with the secrecy on which the Fed successfully has insisted for its other gold records, are powerful confirmations of Western central bank interest in controlling the gold market surreptitiously. The minutes have been posted at GATA's Internet site here:

http://www.gata.org/files/FedMemoG-10Gold&FXCommittee-4-29-1997.pdf

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.



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Prophecy Resource Spins Off Platinum/Palladium Venture:
World-Class PGM Deposit in Yukon

Company Press Release, January 18, 2011

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX-V:PCY)and Pacific Coast Nickel Corp. announce that they have agreed that PCNC will acquire Prophecy's Nickel PGM projects by issuing common shares to Prophecy.

PCNC will acquire the Wellgreen PGM Ni-Cu and Lynn Lake nickel projects in the Yukon Territory and Manitoba respectively by issuing up to 550 million common shares of PCNC to Prophecy. PCNC has 55.7 million shares outstanding.

Following the transaction:

-- Prophecy will own approximately 90 percent of PCNC.

-- PCNC will consolidate its share capital on a 10 old for one new basis.

-- Prophecy will change its name to Prophecy Coal Corp. and PCNC will be renamed Prophecy Platinum Corp.

-- Prophecy intends to distribute half of its PCNC shares to shareholders pro-rata in accordance with their holdings.

Based on the closing price of the common shares of PCNC on January 17, $0.195 per share, the gross value of the transaction is $107,250,000.

For the complete announcement, please visit:

http://prophecyresource.com/news_2011_jan18.php



Join GATA here:

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Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009:

http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal

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http://www.goldrush21.com/

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Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit, Extending the Mineralization of the Southwest Vein on the Property

Company Press Release, October 27, 2010

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include:

-- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres.

-- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres.

-- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre.

Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface.

"The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest."

For the company's full press release, please visit:

http://sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR19_2010.pdf