As the worlds largest debtor, with endlessly mounting trade deficits, negative savings and inflated security markets it is not hard to image the fear motivating recent developments by the Japanese and the Europeans. Enough is enough. Gold reserves are not the problem for central banks of the world but rather their bloated and excessive position of dollars, which has entered a major secular down trend. The European central banks gold policy must be viewed as an aggressive escalation in their policy to establish monetary independence. There is no doubt that the monetary world has crossed the threshold into a monetary system which will be comprised of three reserve currencies.
Gold is no longer to be held hostage to American monetary policy.
It will be interesting to see what response the Bank of Japan will make to the European central banks. An Asian yen backed currency has a long way to go in order to equal the gold reserves backing the dollar and the euro. Up until now the currency world has been engaged in a competitive race to the cellar. It could be that the race for competitive legitimacy has begun. Central banks bid for gold is likely to far exceed the sale limits just established by the Europeans.