The Biggest Government Lie in History? The Biggest Government Lie in History? Published Tue, Jul 16, 2013 | Louis Basenese , Investment Director Welcome to the world’s most secure vault… Completed in 1936, it’s encased in 16,000 cubic feet of granite and 4,200 cubic yards of cement. The vault door weighs an astounding 22 tons and is made of a 21-inch-thick material that’s resistant to drills, torches and explosives. It comes with a bombproof roof, too. Additional layers of physical security include: video cameras, minefields, barbed wire, electric fences, armed guards – even unmarked Apache helicopter gunships. Oh, and it’s stationed on a 109,000-acre U.S. army post. So what’s inside? Well, it depends on who you ask. The government will tell you that almost 5,000 metric tons of gold, or roughly 3% of all the gold ever refined throughout human history, is safely sealed inside the vault.

Others will tell you that the vault (the United States Bullion Depository – known as Fort Knox) is totally empty. What if the skeptics are right? And all this protection is just an elaborate cover-up? What if there’s actually no gold at Fort Knox? Let’s dig a little deeper… Send the Auditors to Fort Knox! In light of the revelations from NSA whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, it’s even harder now to trust Washington politicians. The government has been doing a lot of things that it said it wasn’t for years (i.e. – spying on citizens). And that naturally makes me wonder what else it might be up to. I’m not alone, either. Three-time presidential candidate, Ron Paul, has long questioned the amount of gold at Fort Knox. He even went as far as introducing legislation in 2011, which proposed an audit. One thing we can all agree on is this: Lack of transparency always leads to corruption. So Paul’s audit demand seems reasonable. Especially considering that the world’s publicly traded companies must undergo annual audits. Why should the Federal government be immune? Amazingly, though, the last audit of Fort Knox occurred in 1953, right after President Eisenhower’s inauguration.

Except no outside experts were permitted, and only about 5% of the gold was tested. So there’s been no full audit in over 60 years! Over that time, however, the government has sold its gold – reducing its holdings from about 20,000 metric tons in the 1950s, to the current level of 8,133 metric tons. So are we just supposed to trust that the government stopped selling? In this day and age, that’s a pretty tall order! Just ask the Germans. In late 2012, Germany’s federal court ordered its central bank to conduct annual audits and physically inspect gold deposits worldwide – including in the United States. For decades, the Bundesbank had relied on written confirmation. Why the sudden change of heart? It makes me wonder… A More Fundamental Question Let’s give the government the benefit of the doubt for a (brief) moment and ask: Why do we even have gold reserves? The gold bars, packed tightly into a secure vault, were supposed to give us confidence in our country’s currency. But we cast off the gold standard in 1971 and stopped redeeming currency for gold.

So nowadays, gold reserves are nothing more than an asset on the Fed’s balance sheet, not an integral part of our monetary system. So what gives with clinging tightly to it? Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says that it’s the result of “long-term tradition.” Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics says, “It may lend some confidence to investors that we have large gold reserves. But it’s more symbolic than substantive.” Meanwhile, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan reportedly said, we hold onto the huge reserves “just in case we need it.” (That’s comforting.) In the end, if there’s no real purpose for the gold reserves, then why worry about an audit at all? A Crisis of Confidence One reason the government might not want an audit is because it would lend importance to an asset that it swears is unimportant. Or as hedge fund manager James Rickards puts it, “An audit would give gold too much credit and start to erode the official propaganda that gold is not a monetary asset. After all, no one audits the number of acorns in the national parks… They are too unimportant.” Makes sense. Yet, I don’t think that’s substantive enough to justify the refusal.

What’s more likely is that an audit would raise more questions than it answers. Like, if the gold is really there, does it really all belong to the government? I say that because central banks routinely lease or lend out gold. But current reporting guidelines don’t require them to distinguish between gold owned outright and gold swapped with another party. Instead, the U.S. Treasury simply states its holdings as “gold (including gold deposits and gold swapped).” Or in the British government’s case, “gold (including gold swapped or on loan).” Again, such a lack of transparency opens the door to abuse. Not only could all the gold be on loan (perhaps on unfavorable terms), but banks could also be “re-loaning” that very same gold, thereby creating a “paper pyramid of gold.” The process is known as “rehypothecation,” and it’s exactly what happened during the mortgage crisis with collateralized debt obligations. And we all know how that ended. An audit might also reveal that the government dumped some gold on the world markets to manipulate prices . (Yes, governments have done that before.) And if the U.S. government even sold a little without telling us, trust would be irreversibly broken.

More spectacularly, an audit might reveal that Fort Knox is littered with gold-painted tungsten. Here, too, a precedent exists, as counterfeit bars turn up from time to time . Although I doubt a government would confess to being so incredibly duped. Fort Knox: A New Stimulus Project It would reportedly take 400 people, working full-time for six months, to test all the gold at Fort Knox for purity. It would cost at least $15 million, too. For me, that’s not a deterrent, though. Sounds more like an economic “stimulus” project. Lord knows we’ve squandered way more tax dollars on projects with no tangible benefits. Besides, we could use some new jobs . Bottom line: If you believe the government routinely lies or covers up its actions, we can’t simply laugh off the idea that there’s no gold in Fort Knox. Until an audit is done, the facts provide more questions than answers. And while I don’t believe Fort Knox is completely devoid of gold, it’s certainly possible that our gold reserves are lower than reported and/or not wholly owned by the U.S. government. So what does that mean for the price of gold? Stay tuned for tomorrow’s column.

I’ll address that question to provide a real-world, logical price target for gold. Ahead of the tape, Louis Basenese Louis Basenese helped direct over $1 billion in institutional capital at Morgan Stanley before leaving Wall Street for Silicon Valley. Now, as the world’s premier venture capital analyst, Louis tracks early investment opportunities born from technological breakthroughs and new drug discoveries. Learn More >> Related Articles US Government Lost 7 Fort Knox Gold Audit Reports Posted on 2 Jun 2015 by Koos Jansen US Government Lost 7 Fort Knox Gold Audit Reports There Is No Proof All Gold Is In Fort Knox This post is a sequel to A First Glance At US Official Gold Reserves Audits and Second Thoughts On US Official Gold Reserves Audits . Every year the gold in Fort Knox is ‘audited’ by checking the official joint seals that were placed on all vault compartments during the continuing audits of U.S.-owned gold from 1974 until 1986, when allegedly 97 % of the (Deep Storage) gold was inspected. However, a Freedom Of Information Act request I’ve submitted in order to obtain all audit reports could not be honored. Seven reports are missing.

From at least 1944 the world reserve currency is the US dollar, which was backed by gold until 1971 and supported by gold ever since. There can be no world reserve currency without appropriate gold reserves supporting it, providing essential confidence and credibility. The US official gold reserves are the world’s greatest by far at 8,134 metric tonnes. The fact that 7 audit reports that should grant the existence of these reserves appear to be missing is problematic. At the congressional hearing of the Gold Transparency Act ( H.R. 1495 , not enacted ) in 2011 the Inspector General (IG) of the Treasury presented a case ‘all is fine’, but all is not fine. And the problem goes far beyond missing audit reports. In a series of posts we’ll continue to examine all there is to find regarding the audits of US official gold reserves. Let’s recap what we’ve studied in the previous posts.

The US Treasury currently owns 8,134 tonnes of gold of which 7,716 tonnes is stored by the US Mint (4,583 tonnes at Fort Knox, 1,364 tonnes in Denver, 1,682 at West Point) and 418 tonnes at the Federal Reserve Bank Of New York. We’ve focused on the first audits of the gold stored by the US Mint. A Fort Knox physical gold audit in 1953 was anything but full, neither was the famous audit in 1974 . The Continuing Audits Of U.S.-Owned Gold 1974-1986 Currently the Office Inspector General of the Treasury is responsible for the audits of the gold reserves at the US Mint. At the congressional hearing of the Gold Transparency Act in 2011 Inspector General (IG) Eric Thorson stated : Before I discuss the details of the audits that are the topic of this hearing, I want to make one point very clear: 100 percent of the U.S. Government’s gold reserves in the custody of the Mint has been inventoried and audited. Furthermore, these audits found no exceptions of any consequence.

I also want to assure you that the physical security over the gold reserves is absolute. I can say that without any hesitation, because I have observed the gold and the security of the gold reserves myself. He said this, but there is no proof. His statement “100 percent of the U.S. Government’s gold reserves in the custody of the Mint has been inventoried and audited“ is impossible to confirm, as we’ll see later on. More from Thorson: In June 1975, the Treasury Secretary authorized and directed a continuing audit of U.S. Government-owned gold for which Treasury is accountable. Pursuant to that order, the Committee for Continuing Audit of the U.S. Government-owned Gold performed annual audits of Treasury’s gold reserves from 1975 to 1986, placing all inventoried gold that it observed and tested under an official joint seal. The committee was made up of staff from the Treasury, the Mint, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The annual audits by the committee ended in 1986 after 97 per cent of the Government owned gold held by the Mint had been audited and placed under official joint seal.

Ron Paul asked: …It seems that a portion of the Mint and the U.S. gold reserves were audited in an assay between 1993 and 2008, as you acknowledged. The Mint estimated that as much as one-third of the gold reserves were examined during this period. The other two-thirds, however, have not been inventoried–that is according to my understanding–or assayed since somewhere between 1975 and 1986. Do you think it would be worthwhile, at least, to inventory and assay this portion of the Mint-held gold? Eric Thorson replied: By–I forget which date it was, I believe by 1986, we–hold on just one second here, I got it. It basically covered–by 1986, 97 percent of the Government-owned gold held by the Mint had been audited and placed under joint seal. So once you have done that, and that seal remains unbroken, then I am not sure what other benefit there would be to going back into it at that point.

But by 1986, you had 97 percent was audited– Connecting thereto, from Thorson’s opening statement: My office began conducting annual audits of the gold reserves in Fiscal Year 1993. Since 1993, when we assumed responsibility for the audit, my office has continued to directly observe the inventory and test the gold. …At the end of Fiscal Year of 2008, all 42 compartments had been audited by either the GAO, the Committee for Continuing Audit of the U.S. Government-owned Gold, or my office, and placed under official joint seals. There has not been any movement of inventoried gold since that time. From 1993 to 2008 the remaining 3 % of the gold reserves stored at the US Mint has been audited – I assume. For this post we’ll focus on the continuing audits of U.S.-owned gold, as these audits should proof there is gold in Fort Knox.

By gathering information from audit reports from 1974 – 1986 (the ones I could get my hands on) and statements made at the congressional hearing in 2011 we’ll analyze our way through this. I have copied as much quotes in this post as I can to minimize the possibility of an erroneous interpretation of the official text in the audit reports. At the hearing Thorson presented exhibits to support his case 100 % of the gold held at the US Mint has been audited. Next, we can see Thorson’s list he presented of physical gold audit reports of the continuing audit program from 1974 to 1986. Exhibit 1. GAO stands for General Accounting Office, OIG stands for Office of Inspector General. On this sheet 5 physical gold audit reports are listed, framed in red. The reports from 1974 and 1977 we’ve extensively analyzed in my previous post Second Thoughts On US Official Gold Reserves Audits , published on February 9, 2015. After writing it I’ve been trying to collect all audit reports dating from 1974 – 1986.

The 1974 Fort Knox audit by the GAO has been acknowledged and adopted by the continuing audits committee, so this it became part of the continuing audits. In total there should be 13 reports (1974 – 1986), 2 already were in my possession (1974 and 1977). With regard to my quest for all reports, let’s have a look what US government departments could not deliver what I was looking for: First was the Counsel to the Inspector General Department of the Treasury. Because this is the department currently responsible for the audits I was surprised my request to obtain all audit reports wasn’t honored. They could only find 2 reports I didn’t posses previously, of the audits conducted in 1985 and 1986. They wrote me by email: Mr. Nieuwenhuijs – our Office of Audit found: OIG-87-42 (1986) as well as GAO’s 1974/1975 and 1978 reports. That’s everything we have, or are aware of.

Counsel to the Inspector General Department of the Treasury The “1974/1975 and 1978” reports refer to the audits conducted in 1974 and 1977. The Counsel to the Inspector General Department of the Treasury told me his department only had 4 of the 13 reports I was looking for. His advice to me was to try at the General Accounting Office (GAO) and National Archives for more reports. I would like to stress the importance of this failure to deliver the audit reports of 97 % of the official US gold reserves by the department directly responsible at this point in time. At the congressional hearing in 2011 the IG stated to be 100 % certain all gold stored by the Mint was inventoried and audited, yet his department had access to only a fraction (4) of all audit reports (13). How can the IG be positive if he did not have access to the most basic documentation? The answer is, he can’t. Meanwhile I was fortunate to find the 1981 audit report at the website The Golden Sextant from Reg Howe.

This document also contains a summary of the 1980 audit – which, by the way, isn’t less detailed than the full 1981 report. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say I have both audit reports, 1980 and 1981. That’s 6 down, 7 more to go. Next was the GAO; unfortunately they couldn’t deliver anything I was looking for. Instead, I was advised to contact the Treasury. Same story at the US Mint and US National Archives. There was nothing left to do but submit a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request. On February 25, 2015, I submitted a FOIA request in order to obtain the audit reports drafted by the Continuing Audits Of U.S.-Owned Gold committee in 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1983 and 1984. Shortly after I got an email that stated my request had been received and was being processed. Two months later I still got no response.

When I logged in at my account at the FOIA website, I saw my request had disappeared. I decided to send an email to the FOIA online Help Desk to ask what happened to my request. The next screen shot is from the reply by the FOIA help desk on May 6, 2015. My FOIA request had disappeared, or did it? After some correspondence back and forth I finally got an email saying my FOIA was exported out of FOIAonline because my request was for access to historical records. Then, the official response from the offline department to my request I received on May 13 as a PDF attachment (click here to view) – oddly enough it’s dated ‘March 25, 2015′ but not sent to me at the time. This is what it said: This is in response to your March 2, 2015 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records in the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Your request was received in this office on March 3, 2015 and assigned FOIA case number RD 45578.

You requested access to audit reports of the United States Department of the Treasury’s official gold reserves published by the “Committee for Continuing Audit of the U.S. Government-owned Gold” for the years 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, and 1981-1984. Using the terms: GOLD, RESERVES, REPORT(S), AUDIT, COMMITTEE FOR THE CONTINUING AUDIT, COMMITTEE, INSPECTOR GENERAL, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, BUREAU OF FISCAL SERVICE, and BUREAU OF GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL OPERATION. Our staff conducted a search using the National Archives Holdings Management System under the following records group numbers: RG 50 Treasurer of the United States, RG 56 General Records of the Department of the Treasury, RG 82 Federal Reserve System, RG 101 Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, RG 104 U.S. Mint, and RG 425 Financial Management Service.

However, we were unable to locate records responsive to reports similarly titled or closely related to the subject annual gold audit 1975-1984. For your information, we contacted a librarian at the Treasury Department who informed us that “reports from ‘Committee for Continuing Audit of the U.S. Government-owned Gold’…are not in our collection.” And we attempted to contact a records management officer at the Treasury Department, but did not receive a reply as of the date of this letter. Given the date range of your request 1975-1984, the nature of the report —an annual audit of gold, and the fact that reports of similar type have been periodically published on the Internet, it is likely that copies and drafts of these reports are in the legal and physical custody of the Department of the Treasury. You may consider submitting a FOIA request directly to the Treasury Department. In short, the US National Archives could not extradite the 7 audit reports I requested. The reports were not present at the National Archives, the OIG or at the Treasury Department.

I doubt an attempt to “submitting a FOIA request directly to the Treasury Department” will bring me anything; likely it will be a waste of time as I had already contacted all possible government departments separately, which could not deliver me the reports I was looking for despite none of them was unwilling to help me. I will, however, submit a couple of new FOIA’s at the US government regarding gold audits. The reports I did find, and are now publicly available, are: * 1986 audit ( released by the OIG 4/24/1987 ) Coincidentally, or not, these reports are exactly the same ones as listed by Thorson at the congressional hearing in 2011 (exhibit 1, framed in red). It seems these 6 reports (5 documents) are the only ones “currently in existence” and the remaining 7 have mysteriously disappeared. 1980, 1981, 1985 & 1986 Audit Reports Anomalies Remember, we’re investigating the audits of the greatest gold hoard on earth, which underpins the world reserve currency the US dollar.

We will discuss the remaining 4 audit reports at once, as they are very similar. I’ve found many anomalies that we’ll discuss. These could be better understood, or clarified, if we could obtain all audit reports from 1974 – 1986. However, until the missing audit reports show up we can only look at this case as it’s presented by the US government through the documents that are ‘publicly available’. Federal Reserve Bank Of New York Stopped Auditing Gold During Continuing Audits Program In June 1975 the Secretary of the Treasury authorized the continuing audits of the US owned “gold stock”. While the order is not very detailed, in the years that followed the committee started auditing gold stored at the US Mint and at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY).

In the 1980 report we can read the audit procedures and a few other snippets (we’ll quickly jump through) that help us understand how and where the audits were conducted: Audit procedures included (1) inspecting the joint audit committee seals used to control compartments containing previously audited gold; (2) comparing the records for each compartment inventoried to the identifying information on the gold bars; (3) weighing, from each compartment inventoried, at least one randomly selected melt in each fifty melts (a melt, averages about 20 bars cast from one crucible of molten gold); (4) removing samples from a bar in each of the melts weighed and having the samples assayed; (5) verifying the mathematical accuracy of all inventory records; (6) verifying the inventoried gold to the institutions’ records; (7) verifying the quantities shown by the institutions’ records to the control accounts for gold maintained by the Bureau of the Mint and to the central accounts maintained by BGFO; (8) placing audited gold bars in compartments under Official Joint Seal and audit committee control; and (9) reviewing and evaluating internal controls and security procedures. … William M.

Schultz Federal Reserve Bank of New York Schultz from the New York Fed was part of the continuing audits committee and therefor the FRBNY was supposed to be audited. Quoting from the 1981 report: Gold at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is audited periodically by examiners of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Members of the Committee for Continuing Audits of United States Government-owned Gold representing the Mint and BGFO observed the audits at the invitation of the Board and the Federal Reserve Bank. The initial intention is clear to us, the FRBNY was supposed to be audited; the gold to be counted, weighed, assayed and the compartments to be sealed (these were the audit procedures of the continuing audits committee). More from 1981 report: The continuing audit is being conducted on a cyclical basis because of the enormous quantity of gold to be handled and the related costs. In performing the audit, the gold bars are physically moved from one vault compartment to another. During this operations, the melt numbers and the number of bars in each melt are verified with an inventory listing, and one in fifty melts is randomly selected for weighing and test assay.

…Compartments audited at Mint institutions and depositories are kept under official joint seal by representatives of the audit committee. Exhibit 2. Official joint seal number 932 put in place on September 2, 1982, under the “continuing audits of U.S.-owned gold stored at the Mint”. 4,243 bars were relocated from vault J compartment 19, to vault J compartment 2, at the Denver depository. The compartments at the Mint were placed under official joint seal, whereas the FRBNY compartments were never placed under official joint seal (as we can read on page 11 of the 1980 audit report). This suggests the gold at the FRBNY was stored so it could be easily transported in and out of the vaults, possibly through a corridor to the adjacent private vault at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza – read this post by BullionStar gold researcher Ronan Manly for more information on the construction of the FRBNY vault and the connection to the vault across the street that was owned by JP Morgan, but recently bought by Fosun (October 2013), a Chinese investment conglomerate.

Let’s read more about the audits at the FRBNY conducted under the continuing audits program, a quote from the 1981 report: The audit procedures followed [at the FRBNY] are essentially the same as those followed at Bureau of the Mint depositories, except that assay samples are not taken to verify the purity of the gold. A quote from the 1985 report: Although the quality of the gold in the custody of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York cannot be readily assayed, … Not only were the vault compartments at the FRBNY exempt from being sealed, in addition, for an unknown reason assay tests were never performed at the FRBNY! More from the 1985 report: The audit procedures followed [at the FRBNY] were essentially the same as those followed at Mint institutions except that assay samples were not taken to verify the purity of the gold and the audited gold was not under committee control after the audit. As a result, the gold at the Bank [FRBNY] is considered unaudited. According to the reports available to us, in 1985 the committee had to conclude the gold at the FRBNY was never audited!

The intention in 1975 was to audit the gold at the FRBNY, but then, a few years down the road the gold at the New York Fed was mysteriously exempt from the continuing audits program. Assay Tests For US Official Gold Reserves Have Never Been Credible Moving on to the assay tests conducted at the US Mint. An overview starting from 1953: *In the 1953 report we could read 26 bars (0.00002 % of the total stash at that time) were assayed from bore samples. The assay tests found no irregularities. The assayer is unknown and there was no assay report included in the audit report. *In 1974 the New York assay office tested 95 bars. Two tetrahedron-shaped chips were removed form the top and bottom of each bar assayed. The assay tests found no irregularities. There was no assay report included in the audit report.

*In 1977 , presumably, one bar in every fiftieth melt (one melt is approximately 20 bars) was assayed, irregularities were found in two melts, “ the vault had to be opened twice more in the presence of the Joint Sealing Committee and the gold reevaluated ”. The assayer is unknown and there was no assay report included in the audit report. *For all other ‘publicly available’ audit reports (1980, 1981, 1985, 1986) it’s very briefly mentioned assay tests were conducted, presumably for one in every fiftieth melt. No irregularities were found. The assayer is unknown and no assay reports have been included in the audit reports. *For the audits performed in 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1983 and 1984 under the continuing audits program allegedly 1 in 50 melts has been assayed, although there are no audit reports, nor assay reports, nor do we know who the assayer was.

*It’s likely 97 % of the audited gold by the continuing audits committee has not been assayed by an independent assayer. In 1977 the New York assay office, which is a subsidiary of the US Mint, conducted the assays. For the other years we don’t know what office performed the checks. At this stage I haven’t been able to get my hands on any assay report from 1974 – 1986. But, the OIG disclosed assay reports – of the audits of 3 % of the US official gold reserves stored by the Mint – at the congressional hearing in 2011 (exhibit 3 and 4). Let’s have a look. in 2004 the assayer was Ledoux & Company, a private contractor (read their homepage ). Ledoux & Company found no irregularities in 2004. Then, from 2005 to 2008 the assay tests were conducted by White Sands Missile Range, which is a subsidiary of the US army . This fits right into how the US government imposes audits on their official gold reserves; the audits are performed by the US government itself.

We’ve barely come across any independent auditor that saw, counted, weighed or assayed the US official gold reserves. In 2011 it was portrayed as if KPMG currently is the third party auditor (next to the owner and custodian), but this is not true. A separate post will be dedicated to KPMG. Exhibit 3. Exhibit 4. The results of the assays by Ledoux & Company and White Sands Missile Range presented by the OIG at the congressional hearing show nearly all 9999 fine gold (see exhibit 3, or read page 62 to 124 from this document). This is remarkable. My assumption is, these assays from 2004 – 2008 are all assays authorized by the OIG from 1993 – 2008 and therefor cover 3 % of the gold stored at the US Mint. In the excel sheet with the bar list of gold stored by the US Mint, published a few years ago , we can see nearly all the gold is “low purity” – roughly 90 % pure – very little was 9999 fine.

Coincidentally almost all the gold assayed by the OIG from 2004 – 2008 was 9999 fine. According to the excel sheet the US Mint stores 312 tonnes in 9999 fine gold, spread over 3 depositories; Fort Knox 15 tonnes, Denver 100 tonnes, West Point 197 tonnes. 312 tonnes of the total is 4 %. The OIG audited 3 % from 1993 – 2008. Technically it’s possible the OIG assayed exactly the remaining stash of 9999 gold, though chances are slim given the fact the 9999 gold was spread over multiple compartments at multiple depositories. Why haven’t we ever seen any assays of “coin bars”? Coin bars are “ assaying 899 to 901 per mille or 915 1/2 to 917 per mille” , roughly 90 % pure, and these types of bars allegedly form the bulk of the US official gold reserves.

Former US Mint director Edmund Moy has stated in 2013 US reserves contain mainly coin bars because of the great confiscation in 1933 by President Roosevelt, when US citizens were forced to hand in all physical gold. All the golden coins that were handed in supposedly accumulated to the greatest gold pile on earth. However, as I’ve written in my post Where Did The Gold In Fort Knox Come From? Part One , all golden coins that circulated in the US before 1933 could not have supplied the US official gold reserves to the extent Mr Moy has stated. The “coin bars” topic, which ties together with the existence of the US official gold, deserves a thorough study to be expanded upon in a separate post. 1,700 Tonnes At For Knox Was Re-Audited In Between 1983-1986 As we’ve seen thus far there are many problems with the official story ‘everything is fine, all the US official gold reserves all audited’. The missing audit reports and assay reports feed into our skepticism. And there is more, a lot more.

By the end of 1982 the continuing audits committee, which consisted of BGFO and US Mint staff, was “reorganized under the Department of the Treasury, Office of the Inspector General”. This was the first time the OIG was responsible for the audits of the gold at the Mint (note, this same OIG is still responsible for the audits). Then, something very strange happened in 1983. If we carefully read the scarce audit reports available to us, we notice the audit procedures were revised in 1983. As a result more than 1,700 tonnes at the Fort Knox and the Denver depository, that were both fully audited and sealed at that time, needed to be re-audited. From the 1985 report: In fiscal year 1985 audits of Government-owned gold were conducted at the United States Mint in Denver and the United States Bullion Depository in Fort Knox, Kentucky. The audits were conducted in accordance with the revised audit guidelines that required a statistical sample of gold melts within randomly selected compartments at the facilities.

…In October 1984, 4,136,046.924 fine troy ounces of gold were reaudited at the United States Mint, Denver. In July 1985, 11,912,458.207 fine troy ounces of gold were reaudited at the Fort Knox Depository. …2/ As of September 30, 1982, 100 percent of the gold stored at the depository [Fort Knox] was audited under the initial continuing audit program. Between July 1983 and July 1985 the gold was audited in accordance with the plan approved by the Treasurer, as follows.

Date July 1985 11,912,458.207 July 1986 12,477,777.638 [this number I copied from the 1986 report] …12/ As of September 30, 1984, 99.9 percent of the gold stored at the United States Denver Mint had been audited under the initial continuing audit program. In October 1984, 4,136,046.924 fine ounces gold was reaudited. When thinking about these re-audits, three scenarios pop to mind: In 1983 the OIG found out something was amiss with the audits performed 1974 – 1982. It was decided to destroy several audit and assay reports and no less than 1,700 tonnes needed to be re-audited. The US government wished to open the vaults of audited gold to lease or sell the metal on the open market. An excuse was needed to break the seals.

The BGFO and Mint staff was replaced by the OIG and the “revised audit procedures” were invented as a reason to open several compartments. The auditors were bored and decided to re-audit 1,700 tonnes. Why else would so much gold have been re-audited? I shall rest here. More anomalies with regard to the audits of the US official gold reserves will be discussed in forthcoming posts. As will conclusions and speculation. In the meantime I will fire several new FOIA’s at the Office of the Inspector General and others. If official documents come to surface I will report accordingly. Koos Jansen Status Report of U.S. Treasury-Owned Gold Book Value: The Department of the Treasury records U.S. Government owned gold reserve at the values stated in 31 USC § 5116-5117 (statutory rate) which is $42.2222 per Fine Troy Ounce of gold. The market value of the gold reserves based on the London Gold Fixing as of September 30, 2016 was $345.8 billion.

Deep Storage: That portion of the U.S.Government-owned gold bullion reserve which the Mint secures in sealed vaults that are examined annually by the Treasury Department's Office of the Inspector General and consists primarily of gold bars. Working Stock: That portion of the U.S. Government gold reserve which the Mint uses as the raw material for minting congressionally authorized coins and consists of bars, blanks, unsold coins and condemned coins. The gold reserve held by the Department of the Treasury is partially offset by a liability for gold certificates issued to the Federal Reserve Banks at the statutory rate, which Treasury may redeem at any time. Fiscal Service Items How Much Gold Does the U.S. Really Have? Hope of Israel Ministries (Ecclesia of YEHOVAH): How Much Gold Does the U.S. Really Have? Only a fraction of gold in Fort Knox was ever allowed to be seen. There hasn't been an audit of Fort Knox in over 60 years. If you believe the government routinely lies, why would you believe the government's claim to have retained 8,200 tons of gold for the past 30 years -- especially when the government refuses to provide, or even allow, any independent verification of its claim?

The only reason to currently believe that the government has retained 8,200 tons of gold is that a contrary belief is too disturbing to accept. by Alfred Adask Ft. Knox Gold Gone? On Thursdayï¿½s radio show (Financial Survival, 4PM to 5PM East Coast time (dgscoins.com)), I was reading from an article by Mr. Przemyslaw Radomski that explored the possibility that there's no longer any gold in the U.S. depository at Ft. Knox: ï¿½ "An audit of the US gold holdings has been demanded by some for years, but the government will not allow it. The gold belongs to the American people, so why won't they let us see it? Many think it is because it is no longer there. If that is indeed the case, do we not face a 'financial Armageddon'? "At first it may sound shocking, but the last audit of gold stored in Fort Knox took place in 1953. No typo here, 1953, just after U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower took office.

[However,] No outside experts were allowed [during that audit] and the audit team tested only about 5% of gold hoarded in the fort. So, there hasnï¿½t been a comprehensive audit of Fort Knox in over 60 (!!!) years." ï¿½ "Congressman John R. Rarick demanded a Congressional investigation and, on September 23, 1974 six Congressmen, one Senator and the press were allowed to enter Fort Knox to see for themselves if the gold was there or not. The tour showed that there was gold in Fort Knox but, all the same, it sparked even more controversies. Only a fraction of the gold reserves were available to see. A photo of one Congressman published by Associated Press suggested that gold bars held in the fort may have been less heavy than would be usually expected.

This resulted in even more doubt about the fineness of gold in Fort Knox....[This is] important if you consider that counterfeit 'gold bars' have been showing up in New York recently and that fake gold bars turned up in LBMA Approved Vaults in Hong Kong." ï¿½ "In 2012, the German federal court ordered that the German central bank, Bundesbank, conduct an audit of German gold reserves stored abroad, particularly in the U.S., U.K. and in France. The German authorities have never before conducted a comprehensive audit of their foreign gold reserves and the last time they were [even] able to see their gold stored in the New York Federal Reserve vaults was supposedly in 1979/80. Because of that, 150 tons of gold will be shipped from the U.S. to Germany to assess the fineness of the bars." All of this -- no comprehensive audit in over 60 years, Congressional doubt as far back as A.D. 1974, German doubt in A.D.

2012, and counterfeit "gold bars" -- illustrates that there are legitimate reasons to doubt the gov-co's claim to currently store about 8,200 metric tons of gold at Fort Knox and/or the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mr. Radomski provided an interesting chart [above] to illustrate the relationship between U.S. National Debt and the currently claimed U.S. treasury of gold (8,200 metric tons). The red line shows changes in the number of metric tons of gold held by the U.S. Treasury over time. The yellow line signifies the National Debt as measured in dollars of debt per ounce of gold. Mr. Radomski used this graph to illustrate that back in the 1920s, the government had virtually no National Debt and therefore the ratio of debt to an ounce of gold was 0 to 1. However, over time the National Debt (yellow line) increased until today there are $60,000 in National Debt for each ounce of gold allegedly held in the U.S. Treasury. Mr. Radomski doesn't argue that the price of gold should therefore be $60,000/ounce.

But he does believe that, much like fractional reserve banking, at least 10% of the National Debt should be backed by gold and therefore the current price of gold might reasonably be about $6,000/ounce. He adds that if it turns out that there is little or no gold in Ft. Knox, the price of gold should skyrocket. ï¿½ I look at the graph and a couple of points jump out at me: ï¿½ First, from A.D. 1917 to 1939, the U.S. treasury of gold grew in a fairly orderly, "stair-step" manner from 2,500 tons to about 8,500 tons. ï¿½ Second, in A.D. 1939-1940, the U.S. treasury of gold suddenly jumped from 8,500 tons to about 19,500 tons. That's a 130% increase in about one year. That's fantastic. I don't know why our holdings in gold increased so dramatically.

I presume that with the onset of WWII, foreign nations in the European or Asian theaters of war decided to store some of their gold in the comparatively safe USA. But, if so, I don't understand how an influx of foreign gold intended to be merely stored in the USA could be counted as an addition to the U.S. Treasury. I therefore presume that when WWII started, America's first response was to sell food, and/or military equipment and supplies to nations at war -- and to sell it for gold. Whatever the reason, the onset of WWII was extremely profitable for the U.S. Treasury. (In fact, WWII was so initially profitable that I'm left to wonder if the onset of a WWIII could be similarly profitable. If so, could a WWIII be started for the purpose of increasing our Treasury's supply of gold?) ï¿½ Third, our gold supply grew more or less slowly from A.D. 1939 (19,500 tons) through A.D. 1957 to about 20,500 tons. ï¿½ Fourth, starting about A.D. 1957, the U.S.

Treasury's holding of gold began to fall precipitously from 20,500 tons to a reported 8,500 tons in about A.D. 1972. I don't know what caused that steep decline, but I suspect that the cause may have been some sort of policy change or treaty under the Eisenhower-Nixon administration. There was severe unemployment in A.D. 1958. It's remotely possible that the government began to sell off its gold as a means to "stimulate" the economy. (If so, I can also imagine how the government would eventually realize that they couldn't use up all of their gold and therefore opted to create a pure fiat that could be used to "stimulate" the economy without actually spending any gold. I wouldn't bet that hypothesis is true, but it's an interesting possibility.) Whatever the reason, the U.S. government admits to having reduced its gold holding from 20,500 tons to 8,500 -- almost 60% -- in the 15 years from A.D. 1957 to 1972. That's a huge reduction, and I wonder what the rationale may have been.

(How th' Hell was that allowed to happen?) ï¿½ Fifth, the U.S. disposed of another 200 to 300 tons of gold between A.D. 1972 and A.D. 1980. Since then, our reported gold supply has remained at a constant 8,200 tons. The U.S. Treasury has reportedly not bought nor sold another ounce of gold for the past 32 years. I wonder why? Is 8,200 the "magic number" that represents exactly how many tons of gold we should have? Not too much. Not too little. But juuuust right!...Right? Actually, it strikes me as extremely odd that our Treasury hasn't reported buying or selling one more ounce of gold -- nor have they allowed us to inventory the national treasury of gold -- for over 30 years. Very, very odd. As illustrated by the green dotted line on the graph above, by about A.D. 1972, our reported hoard of gold was almost exactly the same (8,500 tons) as it had been prior to the onset of WWII. Another oddity.

To this day, our reported national gold holdings are almost identical to those of A.D. 1935. I wonder why. Here's another variation on the previous graph that focuses on the loss of American gold from A.D. 1957 through A.D. 1972. I added a blue dotted line to hypothetically extend that rate of loss (from '57 to '72) on through A.D. 1978 -- about when our Treasury's gold holdings would've been completely depleted. The reasons for this extension (dotted blue line) are an interesting story reported by Mr. Radomski and an insight provided by one of today's radio show listeners that struck me as profound. First, Mr. Radomski's story. Speaking about claims that the Ft Knox holds no gold, Mr. Radomski wrote, "This is no new topic. One of the first written accounts questioning the amount of gold really stored in Fort Knox appeared in 1974 in a tabloid, the National Tattler. An unnamed informant claimed that there was no gold left in Fort Knox.

The sensational nature of the story, and of the newspaper, didn't contribute to the credibility of the account but it was later revealed that the informant, Louise Auchincloss Boyer, secretary to Nelson Rockefeller, had fallen out of the window of her New York apartment and died three days after the publication in the Tattler. The tragic incident resulted in controversies over the possibility that the U.S. Bullion Depository may have misstated the actual amount of gold held in Fort Knox." You don't need a tin-foil hat to see the conspiracy theory in that story. A secretary to Nelson Rockefeller reports that there's no gold in Ft. Knox, and three days later she dies under violent and mysterious circumstances. Assuming these two events (the report and the death) are linked rather than coincidental, they imply that the secretary was murdered for telling the truth -- the gold was already gone from in Ft. Knox all the way back in the early 1970s. (Incidentally, if the gold was removed from Ft. Knox, where did it go? Who got it? Insofar as Nelson Rockefeller's secretary died, it might follow that Rockefeller ordered her death.

How much more of a leap would be required to presume that Rockefeller also received at least some of the theoretically missing gold?) Now, here's the insight provided by one of my radio show listeners that struck me as profound: Did President Nixon close the "gold window" (redemption of foreign-held paper dollars with U.S. gold at the rate of $35/ounce) in A.D. 1971 because he didn't want to bleed any more gold out of the U.S. Treasury? Or did Nixon close the "gold window" because the gold was already all gone? Closing the "gold window" and thereby reducing the paper dollar to a pure fiat currency wasn't Nixon's only option. He could more easily have simply devalued the dollar from $35/ounce to $100/ounce -- or even $200 per ounce. Sure, such devaluation would cause an uproar in global trade, but declaring dollars to be worth only 1/100th of an ounce of gold could not be as bad as declaring dollars were worth no gold whatsoever.

If Nixon had devalued the dollar from roughly 3% ($35) of an ounce of gold to 1% ($100) or 0.5% ($200) of an ounce of gold, the dollar would at least have still been "as good as gold" -- not as much gold as formerly, mind you, but still, some gold. Why did Nixon choose to "close the gold window" and turn the dollar into a pure fiat currency rather than simply devalue the dollar to $50, $100 or $200 per ounce of gold? Was it because Nixon was a hard-nosed S.O.B? Or was it because the Treasury could no longer redeem paper dollars for gold at any price for gold (not even $1,000/ounce) because the gold was already all gone? Was the government's primary objective in "closing the gold window" to prevent the American people and the world from "looking in" and learning that the U.S. was out of gold and therefore bankrupt? Look back at the previous graph. The government admits to losing 60% of our gold from A.D. 1957 through A.D. 1972.

But, according to Mr. Radomski, we haven't had a comprehensive audit of Ft. Knox since A.D. 1953. Thus, we don't actually know how much gold is gone. Oh, you can bet that at least 60% of the former gold is gone. The government has admitted that much gold is gone. But, it's entirely possible that the government didn't merely dispose of 60% of our gold during those 15 years. Maybe they disposed of 70%. Or, even 80%. Or, even 99.9% of our national treasury of gold. We have nothing to prove the government's claim that it's kept 8,200 tons of gold since A.D.1973 -- except the government's word of honor. We do see proof every day that the government has no "honor" and will, instead, lie any time it suits the government's interests. What is the true inflation rate? What's the true unemployment rate? What's the true size of the National Debt? How many of you believe the government tells the truth about any of those numbers?

[What about, "If you like your insurance, you can keep it"; "If you like your doctor you can keep him or her"; "If you like your hospital, you can keep it"!] How many of you believe the government routinely lies? If you believe the government routinely lies, why would you believe the government's claim to have retained 8,200 tons of gold for the past 30 years -- especially when the government refuses to provide, or even allow, any independent verification of its claim? The only reason to currently believe that the government has retained 8,200 tons of gold is that a contrary belief is too fantastic to accept. Surely, our beloved gov-co would never lie about such an important issue, right? This parallels the "big lie" strategy first advanced by Adolph Hitler's minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. In essence, the people may not believe government's little lies, but they'll never doubt gov-co's big ones. Could it be that our gov-co's claim to hold 8,200 tons of gold is one of the world's biggest -- and therefore most believable -- lies, ever?

If we extend the blue dotted arrow on the previous graph, we can see that at the rate gold was admittedly being lost between A.D. 1957 and 1972, all of the gold would've been gone by about A.D. 1978. We're told that Nelson Rockefeller's secretary revealed that all of the gold was gone in A.D. 1974. We know that President Nixon closed the "gold window" in A.D. 1971. The graph, the secretary's claim and closing the gold window all reflect events in the 1970s. That's not proof, but it is a bit of a coincidence. Those three bits of "evidence" are all consistent with the possibility that all of the U.S. gold was gone sometime around A.D. 1970 (which, coincidentally, was in the midst of the Viet Nam War). Guns AND butter? Is it possible that the gold reportedly stored at Ft. Knox hasn't disappeared recently (as some suspect), but has been gone for over 40 years? Inquiring minds wanna know.

Hope of Israel Ministries -- Proclaiming the Good News of the Soon-Coming Kingdom of YEHOVAH God Here On This Earth! Hope of Israel Ministries The United States Mint · About Us Check out our interactive timeline for information about all the facilities that the Mint has operated over the years and what was happening at that time. History When the United States government began minting coins in 1792 , the original United States Mint facility in Philadelphia was hard-pressed to produce enough currency for our small country. As the country grew and the demand for coins increased , it became necessary to expand Mint facilities . This expansion was further fueled by the discovery of gold, first in the Southeast and later in the West, and the need for hard currency which caused people to mint their own gold coins. In the mid-nineteenth century, additional mints were opened in Charlotte, NC ; Dahlonega, GA; New Orleans, LA ; and San Francisco, CA. In 1870, the Carson City, NV Mint opened, and in 1904 the Denver, CO Assay Office became a mint facility.

Today, in order to keep our economy flowing smoothly, the United States Mint maintains facilities in Philadelphia , Denver, San Francisco, and West Point, and a bullion depository in Fort Knox, KY. The number of coins minted today is astounding. Denver and Philadelphia can each produce tens of millions of coins every day. Manufacturing the coins to meet the needs of the United States requires a tremendous amount of natural resources. That is why the United States Mint had embarked on projects to reduce our energy, water and material use during coin production. Learn more about the United States Mint's sustainability efforts . Functions The stories behind each of the United States Mint facilities are fascinating, too. Following is a list of the activities and responsibilities for each current United States Mint facility: Headquarters, Washington, D.C.: Policy formulation and central agency administration; program management; research and development; marketing operations; customer services and order processing; business unit management, all website services. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Sculpting-engraving of U.S. coins and medals; production of medal and coin dies; production of coins of all denominations for general circulation; production of regular uncirculated coin sets; production of commemorative coins as authorized by Congress; production of medals; and conducting of public tours.

Denver, Colorado: Production of coins of all denominations for general circulation; production of coin dies; production of regular uncirculated coin sets; production of commemorative coins as authorized by Congress; and the conducting of public tours; and storage of gold and silver bullion. San Francisco, California: Production of regular proof coin sets in clad and silver; production of commemorative coins as authorized by Congress. West Point, New York: Production of all uncirculated and proof one-ounce silver bullion coins; all sizes of the uncirculated and proof gold bullion coins; one-ounce platinum bullion coins; the 24-karat one-ounce American Buffalo Gold Bullion Coin; and commemorative coins as authorized by Congress; and storage of silver, gold and platinum bullion. Fort Knox, Kentucky: Storage of U.S. gold bullion. Tours Please refer to the Mint Tours pages for details regarding tour information of our Denver and Philadelphia facilities... or you can visit How Coins Are Made and learn all about the United States Mint's coin making process.

1-800-USA-MINT Audit America's Gold Reserves Auditing America's Gold Reserves Auditing America's Gold Reserves The Sound Money Defense League is rallying Americans to demand a full and complete audit of America's gold reserves. Accordingly, we support the Gold Reserves Transparency Act which was re-introduced in the U.S. Congress in 2015. The federal authorities who control our nation's once-vast gold reserves at Ft. Knox have refused to allow a comprehensive audit to be conducted since the Eisenhower Administration! Has the U.S. gold reserve been whittled away to finance wild federal spending? Has America's gold been shipped to New York to dump on the market? Or has any been sent to China to cover our debts? With financial turmoil rising globally and with growing concerns that a portion of America's gold reserves may have been sold, leased, pledged, or otherwise encumbered, it's vital a full and complete audit be conducted in order to restore the confidence of the American people that our nation's most important monetary assets are safe. The U.S.

Bullion Depository at Fort Knox Has a Curious History of Secrecy When President Franklin Roosevelt ordered Americans in 1933 to surrender their gold to the government, he suddenly found he needed a place to put all those millions of gold coins. Roosevelt's infamous Executive Order 6102 gave Americans one month to give up their gold pocket change and gave FDR the ability to print and spend all the money he liked. It was viewed suspiciously and was widely unpopular, but it was largely obeyed. Millions of gold coins were dutifully taken to banks by bewildered but patriotic Americans to trade for paper dollars. Fort Knox, Kentucky Roosevelt was faced with assuring the nation that confiscated gold still belonged to all of America, and was properly safeguarded. And so the plans for The United States Bullion Depository were born. An army base near Louisville, Kentucky was chosen for its geographical location, secure in almost the very center of the nation, hundreds of miles from America's coastlines, where any future invading enemies would first put their boots on America's ground. Construction for the massive fortress that would become so much a part of American legend and lore began in 1936 and took a year.

Beginning in January 1937, trainloads of American gold under the guard of armed soldiers arrived at Kentucky's Fort Knox, to store away what was still reverently called the “nation's gold.” As the boxcars' gold was unloaded into vaults behind 20,200 cubic feet of granite and concrete and a 22 ton door, it would be, with few exceptions, the last time Americans had any glimpse of the same gold they carried in their pants pockets a few years earlier Today, Fort Knox is paradoxically a symbol of American strength, power, and prestige, while at the same time, the center of controversy, suspicion, and political intrigue. The question on the minds of American taxpayers and a high number of Congressmen is whether or not Fort Knox still has the gold stored for safeguarding eighty years ago. Those questions abound for one particular reason: The U.S. government refuses to talk about gold. We know that the last credible, examination of Fort Knox's gold was sixty-one years ago, 1953. Rumors and reports that gold was being bled from Fort Knox to help pay the bills of WWII and the Korean War caused Dwight Eisenhower to reassure America its gold in Fort Knox was still safe.

There is no evidence that inspection was a thorough audit (reports said it was a spot check of 5% of the gold), but final reports decided all was in order. American voters and Congress, satisfied that America's gold was accounted for, let the matter lay for the next twenty years,. But national debt piling up from the Vietnam War and the massive welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson'sGreat Society, accompanied with rapidly rising oil prices in the early 1970's, put Americans on edge once again. A new spate of concern reached Congress when a Washington attorney's book charged $20 billion in gold was missing, and a popular, grocery-store tabloid, The National Tattler, fanned public clamor for a new audit of Fort Knox. This time, the government was ready. It would spend a theatrical afternoon showing off some gold without revealing anything. The event, Sept. 23, 1974, is often inaccurately called the last audit of Fort Knox. It was nothing more than a peek-a-boo glance at the gold in fine Hollywood style.

Fort Knox was thrown open on that Monday afternoon for about 2 hours to some 150 reporters and glad-handing politicians, crowding narrow passageways and elbowing each other for a few seconds to glance into one of four vaulted rooms. Television newscast film and magazine photographs, including The National Tattler's, showed various politicians and reporters hoisting and admiring 400 ounce bars of gleaming gold. Photos and film of that day show smiles all around. The crowning, comical touch was the sight of armed guards passing metal detectors over each visitor, to assure that none of the entourage was sneaking out with a 400 ounce bar, weighing 27 ½ pounds, in his pants pockets. Not one bar of gold was assayed for purity during that 1974 charade, not one serial number was checked against official records, and no one counted the bars of gold stacked to the ceiling in the one room that was opened for inspection. Other rooms, said to be filled with gold, were not opened. And, one other important question was never asked, yet alone answered.

Since before World War II, Fort Knox served as the safe haven for much of the gold legally belonging to foreign nations. In the 1930s, fears that Europe would be overrun by Hitler's Wehrmacht sent the gold from Eastern Europe, France, and Great Britain to Fort Knox for safekeeping. Those fears mounted during the Cold War era, with the Soviet Union as the new invader. The question no one asked or answered on that September Monday in 1974 was: whose gold are we looking at – ours or theirs? Questions abound as China, Russia and other nations are known to be stacking many tons of gold every month, in tonnage far greater than can be explained by annual mine output or publicized transactions. Led by the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA), experts have compiled evidence for many years that the U.S. and other governments secretly trade in the gold market with no public accounting. Meanwhile, foreign leaders have made it known they want their gold brought home from Fort Knox. Germany, at the top of that list, was laughingly told to wait seven years, with no credible reasons given.

Today, no one outside a small, group of tight-lipped government officials and bankers of the privately owned and operated Federal Reserve knows the answers to any of those mysteries. Americans faced with unbearable debt and unstoppable government spending by a non-credible government, just as in 1974, are rudely shut out of any believable information about Fort Knox's gold. They are once again rightly suspicious. Lack of Transparency Hobbles Public Confidence in Security of America's Gold Reserves Public opinion polls from Rasmussen over the past 5 years show 75% of Americans want an audit of the Federal Reserve system, which would bring up questions about the Fed's use of America's gold reserves in conjunction with its market interventions. But an audit of the Fed is different than a comprehensive audit of America's gold. An informal survey by national gold and silver bullion dealer Money Metals Exchange in late 2014 found the same public opinion results – only 10% of more than 30,000 respondents believe there is gold in Fort Knox. All public surveys consistently show four of five Americans do not trust the government when it comes to the national debt, Fort Knox, and gold.

An honest answer would not be a simple matter of showing some gold to a throng of rowdy onlookers. Experts believe a credible examination of Fort Knox and U.S. gold held at the New York Fed and elsewhere could take a large team of forensic auditors and two years to accomplish. The one single fact adding fuel to what has become a wildfire of distrust is the government's flat refusal to provide a public accounting of not only Fort Knox's gold, but the banking records of the entire U.S. government, now eighteen trillion dollars in public debt, not including untold trillions in future debt obligations, and not including the U.S. banking system's exposure to what the Bank of International Settlements says is 700 trillion in shadowy derivative financial products sloshing around the globe. That flat refusal is much more serious than a political poke in the eye. It exposes the credibility of the U.S. government itself, wobbling in the center of the growing global financial crisis. Is America's gold still safe, or is the world's largest and most famous piggy bank a crime scene? The true answer to that question could actually shake the world's financial system to its core and change the lives of every inhabitant on Earth overnight.

GET FREE UPDATES! 5 Non-Gold Treasures Stored at Fort Knox | Mental Floss 5 Non-Gold Treasures Stored at Fort Knox Getty Images Like us on Facebook Think Fort Knox is just for gold? Well, that’s a lot of bullion. Here are five more items that have been stored in the vault. 1. The Magna Carta The Magna Carta has traveled the world, and one of its four known copies spent a long layover in Fort Knox during World War II. Its original American destination: the British Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. When World War II erupted a few months later, the document was sent to the vault for safekeeping. It was a Fort Knox life for the Magna Carta until 1947, when it was returned to Lincoln Cathedral. 2. The Constitution and 3. The Declaration of Independence The Magna Carta wasn’t the only historical document hanging out among the gold bars during World War II. It was in good, American company—with the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The papers were moved from Washington, D.C. to Fort Knox two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. But don’t picture them in a museum display.

They were kept under lock and key … and sealed with lead … and placed in another protective container. All told, the documents were kept safe by some 150 pounds of gear, not to mention the fact that they were in Fort Knox. They returned to D.C. in 1944. 4. The Holy Crown of Hungary Sure, it’s made of gold, pearls, and other jewels. But back in the day, the Holy Crown of Hungary (also known as the Crown of Saint Stephen) was also thought to be divine. Hungarian King Coloman the Book Lover, who reigned from 1095 to 1116, wrote that the Holy Crown, not the king, was the true leader of the country. That’s a lot of power for a piece of bling! Important as it is, the Holy Crown’s been stolen, lost, and found throughout history. At the end of World War II in 1945, the U.S. 86th Infantry Division recovered the crown in Mattsee, Austria. When it was returned to the Hungarian Crown Guard, the unit considered the threat of the Soviet Union. So guess what happened?

Yep, the Holy Crown was sent to Fort Knox for the duration of the Cold War. It stayed there and got the royal security treatment until 1978. 5. Tons of Morphine and Opium Among all the gold in Fort Knox is a cache of morphine and opium worth millions. And no, these were not recovered during the War on Drugs. Instead, they were stored back in 1955 in preparation for the Cold War. The U.S. military wanted to be sure to have enough emergency painkillers in the event that our access to foreign opium sources was cut off. The tricky part: what to do with all these drugs we don't need anymore. Selling all the remaining morphine could've depressed the domestic market, so the U.S. spent millions refining the old opium into morphine sulphate in 1993. It's still locked up, just like you'd be if you got caught with that many drugs.

Question: What does the U.S. government famously store at Fort Knox?
Answer: Gold