Thursday, August 02, 2007

Where's the gold gone?

Looking again at World Gold Council stats, there's something odd: a heck of a lot of gold has disappeared.

In seven years, from the first quarter of 2000 to the last quarter of 2006, the total tonnage held by countries and the IMF and World Bank has declined from 33, 375.1 to 30,383.8. That's a total reduction of nearly 9%, 2,991.3 tonnes of gold to be exact. At today's price ($21,426.87 per kilo), that's $64.09 billion gone off the radar.

Or to put it another way, at this rate of attrition, there will be no officially-held gold in the world at all in about 71 years' time, less than the lifespan of an average American.

The people must be voting in the only way that makes much difference these days, squirreling away pieces of gold. Or does anyone have a better explanation?

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