Feds Dirty Little Secret: The Gold Isnt There Exists as Paper IOUsMac Slavo Thats exactly what Germany expected would happen last year when the country requested that the Federal Reserve return about one-fifth of their gold reserves. But thats when things got really dicey. The Fed announced that Germanys gold would be returned but it would take seven years to get back home. The response to Germanys request turned heads all over the world and raised concerns that the Federal Reserve had squandered its gold holdings. But this isnt the only red flag that was raised. Public pressure reached such levels that the Fed was forced to take steps to maintain confidence in its operations, so it started shipping gold to Germany. Except it turns out that the gold being sent back to the Bundesbank wasnt actually German gold. It contained none of the original serial numbers, had no hallmarks, and was reportedly just recently melted. The implications are earth shattering and hit the very core of the problems facing America today. The whole system as it exists is just one big paper IOU. For the reply to be that it would take seven years for this Gold to be sent back to you, your Gold to be sent back to you, was an obvious admission that the Gold just isnt there. [] Yes, its an admission that the German reserves were not still sitting there in the vault in the same form that they were sent there after WWII. They were not the original Central Bank Gold bars, same serial numbers etc. Its an admission that at some point since then, that Gold has been used for other purposes. [] So the dirty little secret here, is that a significant portion of central bank Gold reserves, including the U.S., dont exist now in their original bar form. In fact, they exist as IOUs, paper IOUs, from the very banks that were bailed out in 2008 by the Federal Reserve. So the Gold isnt there, and the secret that theyre hiding is that its been replaced by IOUs, and importantly those IOUs are for Gold that was borrowed at much lower prices. The Fed, through their recent actions, has essentially admitted that the gold stored in their vaults isnt really there. Just as our government refuses to be openly transparent to with the American people, the Fed has resisted all calls to open their books (and vaults) to impartial third-party accountants for review. The whole system, it seems, is now operating on IOUs. Be it consumers, banks, the Fed or even the US government, all of the US dollars being exchanged are nothing but worthless pieces of paper, because given the lack of transparency at the Fed, we have to assume that the physical assets supposedly backing all this currency have already been spent. Are we wrong in making this assumption? If you were to store some emergency funds with a friend who promised to get them back to you whenever you asked, and then you ask and are told itll be a few years before hell get you the cash, what assumption would you make? That your friend has the money on him right now, or that hes used it for other purposes and doesnt really know exactly when hell have it available for repayment? Our entire consumer economy, as well as the credit worthiness of our nation, is built upon confidence. It took decades to get America in a position where our countrys monetary issues and services would be trusted by the international community. Its taken just a few years for that confidence to be lost. Its now only a matter of time before our creditors and global investors pull the plug on the whole thing. You can read more from Mac Slavo at his site SHTFplan.com, where this first appeared. 