I'm watching a special on Fort Knox on the History Channel, and it's kinda pissing me off. The imperial tone associated with the Depository, it highlights the remoteness and scary aloofness of the government with regard to the American people, as the National Security State continues to evolve.
I thought they said about $100 billion in gold is kept there. Since the US went off the gold standard, and since the gold stored there isn't circulating, I can't help but wonder what it's doing there, what purpose it serves? Or is it just an exercise in government inertia?
It's like the equivalent of stuffing money in your mattress, in a sense. Unless it's being used covertly or something. Maybe it's being paid out to the owners of our government (e.g., creditors). I don't know. Why's it there?
Maybe we charge governments to put things there, like the ultimate strongbox or something.
Even when they had people visit in 1974, to ostensibly dispel rumors that there was fuck-all in there, they only showed the visitors one room full of gold! To my cynical, sarcastic, ironic, jaded Gen X self, I'm thinking "What about the other rooms??" People who saw the gold in that room said "Yeah, I saw gold!" but I'm thinking *Pff. One room's worth.*
They only audit 10% of the gold in there, I guess.
But if it were revealed that there wasn't so much gold in there as was claimed, that would probably cause some kind of economic meltdown, so maybe that's why all the secrecy's surrounding it.
With so much secrecy around it, we can't really know. Hence the problem with secrecy in a purportedly democratic government, yes?
1 comment:
That 100 billion in gold may be needed to save our economy once the Chinese dump their treasury bonds. Or not...who knows?
But ya' gotta love The History Channel.
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