Think Ron Paul is the only person asking questions about the actual gold supposedly backing the currency in circulation. Think again: the “ask your central banker where his gold is” tour just went global after the Dutch the Dutch Socialists Party (SP)’s spokesman for financial affairs, Mr. Ewout Irrgang, asked the Dutch Secretary of the Treasury 10 detailed questions about the gold supposedly held by the Dutch Central Bank. Questions vary from: where is the gold? why are gold and gold receivables one line item? how much gold is loaned out? As Dutch website Vrijspreker.nl points out, “This is potentially a big breakthrough for global awareness on how central banks hide crucial info from the public and the disastrous effects central banks have on society.” Is Belgium next to ask the same question in a vain attempt to understand just how much of its gold is permanently “lent out”? And after Belgium, everyone else with a central bank perhaps?

The Questions:

1 Did the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) loan part of their gold? If yes, how much and to whom?

2 Why are gold and gold loans stated as one line item in the annual report 2010 instead of mentioned as 2 separate items?

3 Can you give an overview of the yearly yields of the gold loans during the past years?

4 Where IS the physical gold of DNB? At which locations and how much is where? What is the reason that the gold is still at these locations?

5 What was the most important reason for DNB to sell the gold in the past? Are the storage costs a reason? What are the actual costs to store the gold?

6 Can you confirm that since 1991 of the 1700 tons of gold about 1100 tons have been sold? Is the remark of journalist Peter de Waard correct that because of these historic sales there is a loss of about 30 billion euro? If not correct, what is the right amount?

7 How much of the National Debt has during the past 20 years been paid off with the proceeds of the gold sales? Are you of opinion that the sustainability of the national debt will be improved by paying off the debt and at the same time selling the gold?

8 What is in your opinion the present function of the gold stock?

9 What is the relation between the size of the market of the gold stock and the size of the market of gold derivates? What are the possible consequences of this?

10 Can you confirm that recently a number of countries have even enlarged their physical gold stock? Do you have an explanation for this development? (Read more from zerohedge.com)

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to keep the economy from plunging into depression included lending banks and other companies as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S. homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley (MS), got as much as $107.3 billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an act of Congress.

“These are all whopping numbers,” said Robert Litan, a former Justice Department official who in the 1990s served on a commission probing the causes of the savings and loan crisis. “You’re talking about the aristocracy of American finance going down the tubes without the federal money.”

(View the Bloomberg interactive graphic to chart the Fed’s financial bailout.)
Foreign Borrowers

It wasn’t just American finance. Almost half of the Fed’s top 30 borrowers, measured by peak balances, were European firms. They included Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, which took $84.5 billion, the most of any non-U.S. lender, and Zurich-based UBS AG (UBSN), which got $77.2 billion. Germany’s Hypo Real Estate Holding AG borrowed $28.7 billion, an average of $21 million for each of its 1,366 employees. (Read more from bloomberg.com)

Ron Paul at the Concord Monitor from Concord Monitor on Vimeo.

* Dollar getting beat up.

* Gold / silver pull back because of pullback from Euro?

* Bernanke says, essentially “it ain’t money if I can’t print it.” Says people buy gold because of uncertainty. But Peter is buying gold b/c he is certain Bernanke is destroying the dollar.

* Bernanke claims dollar’s worth has nothing to do with America’s purchasing power. Is he nuts?

* By saying the U.S. will default if the credit ceiling isn’t raised, Obama tells U.S. creditors how low they are on the totem pole of who gets paid.

* Another NIA pump-and-dump scam.

Great charts of who and how much here.

By 2003, such was Murdoch’s access to Blair, that he was even able to put a call through to the prime minister on the eve of the Iraq war and advise Blair to join George Bush’s invasion. (Read more from guardian.co.uk)

Government often consists of creating arbitrary restrictions, then selling exceptions to them. Here, for example:

From my friend Drew: One is from New York , another is from Tennessee and the third is from Florida.

All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. The Florida contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. “Well,” he says, “I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, “I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The New York contractor doesn’t measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, “$2,700.” The official, incredulous, says, “You didn’t even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?” The New York contractor whispers back, “$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence.” “Done!” replies the government official.

And that, my friends, is how government contracting works!

Osama al-Nujaifi, the Iraqi parliament speaker, has told Al Jazeera that the amount of Iraqi money unaccounted for by the US is $18.7bn – three times more than the reported $6.6bn.

Just before departing for a visit to the US, al-Nujaifi said that he has received a report this week based on information from US and Iraqi auditors that the amount of money withdrawn from a fund from Iraqi oil proceeds, but unaccounted for, is much more than the $6.6bn reported missing last week.

“There is a lot of money missing during the first American administration of Iraqi money in the first year of occupation.

“Iraq’s development fund has lost around $18bn of Iraqi money in these operations – their location is unknown. Also missing are the documents of expenditure.

“I think it will be discussed soon. There should be an answer to where has Iraqi money gone.”

The Bush administration flew in a total of $20bn in cash into the country in 2004. This was money that had come from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets.

Officials in Iraq were supposed to give out the money to Iraqi ministries and US contractors, intended for the reconstruction of the country.

‘No trace’

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that Iraqi officials argue that the US government was supposed to safeguard the stash under a 2004 legal agreement it signed with Iraq, hence making Washington responsible for the cash that has disappeared. (Read more from english.aljazeera.net)

Listen carefully and you’ll understand why unions love government projects.

A fifth of Russia’s state defense spending is stolen every year by corrupt officials, dishonest generals and crooked contractors, Russia’s chief military prosecutor said in an interview published on Tuesday.

President Dmitry Medvedev says endemic corruption is holding back Russia’s development, but anti-bribery groups say the problem has become worse since Medvedev was steered into the Kremlin by his mentor Vladimir Putin in 2008.

“Huge money is being stolen – practically every fifth rouble and the troops are still getting poor quality equipment and arms,” chief military prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky told Russia’s official gazette, Rossiiskaya Gazeta. “Every year more and more money is set aside for defense but the successes are not great,” he said, adding that kickbacks and fictitious contracts were being used to defraud the state.

Fridinsky did not give specific figures, but Russia has set more than 1.5 trillion roubles ($53 billion) for national defense in its 2011 budget, indicating theft of more than $10 billion a year from the sector. (Read more from news.yahoo.com)

I recently set out to determine how honest General Motors is being when it claims that demand for the Chevy Volt is exceeding supply. It was not hard to discover that this is not the case as retail sales remain dismal. A web search on vehicle locator sites such as Autotrader and Cars.com exhibit sufficient supply of the Volt, one dealership within 70 miles of my location had six new Volts available for sale.

Even Ebay lists vehicles, many had no bids and one listing in Texas hadn’t even met reserve with only one day of bidding time remaining. But I discovered something far more disturbing during my search. Many Volts with practically no miles on them are being sold as “used” vehicles, enabling the dealerships to benefit from the $7,500 credit supplied by the American taxpayers on each car. (Read more from nlpc.org)

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF chief faces arraignment in New York on rape charges.

IMF leader and potential French presidential candidate Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 62, was pulled from an airplane bound for Paris just before its departure Saturday in New York, the Associated Press reported.

The IMF chief was arrested after a 32-year-old maid told authorities Strauss-Kahn attacked her Saturday afternoon after she entered his suite at the luxury Sofitel hotel to clean the $3,000-a-night suite, which she had been told was empty, the AP reported.

According to an account given by the woman to police, Strauss-Kahn came out of a bathroom naked, pursued her down a hallway, and pulled her into a bedroom, where he started to sexually assault her. The woman said she fought him off, then he pulled her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him and attempted to remove her underwear. The woman once again broke free and alerted hotel staff, who called police, the authorities said.

Strauss-Kahn, considered a potential Socialist Party challenger to French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, was arrested on an Air France jet about to depart from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

(Read more from globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com)