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by vladimirralev 266 days ago
Good time to remind everybody that the Fed, the US central bank, prices gold at $42.22 for some reason and nobody questions it ever. And all those dignified educated respectable board members and econ PhDs give speeches about science-based market economy, maintaining credibility and staying away from politics while caring about the wellbeing of households and families.
2 comments
ajross 266 days ago
That's wildly misunderstanding things. The fed doesn't trade, regulate, hold or sell gold. That price you're quoting is for a historical artifact called a Gold Certificate. These things have a value set by law (not by the fed) of 42 and 2/9th dollars. They don't sell them anymore, but if you happen to have one they're required to buy it from you (IIRC) at that rate.

As always, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_certificate_(United_State...

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vladimirralev 266 days ago
It's a little bit broader than this. In the Fed there is the so called "statutory price for gold" and it's not limited to gold certificates. Any gold in the Fed would be priced at $42 by law. The fact that they don't technically own any gold and work around the issue only makes it so much more amusing. It only serves to tell people they can fix prices and make outrageous course-correction changes overnight and people will still argue "it's fine and it's legal" afterwards.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/data/intlsumm/current.htm

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ajross 266 days ago
Again, that's all just conspiracy nonsense. Yes, there are old laws. No, they don't effect macroeconomic policy and to claim they do is silly. This is of a piece with the Trillion Dollar Coin nonsense[1] being hawked in equally silly circles on the other side of the aisle.

Real world economic policy works by virtue of steady hands and rigorously applied norms, not goofball trickery around edge cases of ancient laws.

[1] The idea that the Treasury's statutory authority to mint coinage could be exploited to mint a single illiquid-by-virtue-of-size asset that could then be borrowed against without increasing the debt ceiling.

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vladimirralev 266 days ago
Yes you are making my point exactly, I just gave you a link to the official federal reserve website that values gold at $42 and you still refer to it as a conspiracy theory. Surely they could have fixed this by now if it was a typo or a conspiracy.

The fact they they kept the price fixed should serve as a reminder they can do this at any time. There is no conspiracy theory, they've literally done this and nobody challenged them and no laws have changed since then (thus the "ancient law" that is somehow still in effect). The sophisticated economists that study "real world economic policy works by virtue of steady hands and rigorously applied norms" can make another "ancient law" any time they want.

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ajross 266 days ago
Citing the completely-unused ancient law in support of a claim that the fed is somehow "fixing prices" or "making outrageous course corrections overnight" or that they can "make another law any time they want" is the conspiracy. They aren't doing that. And they never have. And you know it. Which is why you're making noise about ancient unused laws.

We're done, this will be my last comment.

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glial 266 days ago
> nobody questions it ever

Seems like anyone who buys or sells gold at any other price is questioning it.

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vladimirralev 266 days ago
Well, please show me any mainstream finance media that questions it. The Fed has a monthly press conference, I don't think they were asked even once in the last 10 years at least... Most of the buying now is from Asia supposedly.
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