Federal Reserve has Been accused of gold-price manipulation. NOW, the Federal Reserve is Stealing Iraqi Oil Revenues

Photos

Federal Reserve has Been accused of gold-price manipulation. It's about TIME!

see larger image

uploaded by Mountaineer

Federal Reserve Has It’s Greasy Hands in the Cookie Jar Again,

Remember, the neocons told us the
invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent murder of over a million Iraqis, was all
about deposing the evil Saddam Hussein and gifting the Iraqi people with
democracy.

Hey, and I have this Bridge for sale.

At the time, some of us said the invasion was divided into two
roughly equal parts — first, the cynical neocon desire to split Iraq in three
parts with a heaping dose of “clash of civilizations” chaos and murder injected
for good measure, and second the neolib plot to steal Iraq’s oil.

In regard to the first, the neocons provided plenty of
evidence in their writings and white papers. Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters —
formerly of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within
the U.S. Defense Department — even provided us with a map of this proposed
carving up, not that the corporate media took notice.

As to the second, we now have confirmation that the banker and
Wall Street neolibs — more interested in good old fashioned looting than
engaging in the process of balkanization — indeed accomplished their scheme to
rob the Iraqis blind.

“Increased Iraqi oil revenues stemming from high prices and
improved security are piling up in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York rather
than being spent on needed reconstruction projects,” reports the Washington
Times.

Out of $10 billion budgeted for capital projects in 2007, only
4.4 percent had been spent by August, according to official Iraqi figures
reported this month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The
report cited unofficial figures saying about 24 percent had been spent.

Meanwhile, some $6 billion to $7 billion from last year’s
budget is “being rolled over” and invested in U.S. treasuries, said Yahia Said,
director of Iraq Revenue Watch, part of the private watchdog group Revenue
Watch Institute.

So-called “de-Ba’athification” — the systematic removal and
liquidation of Saddam’s functionaries and others — facilitated the process of
robbery. “The country’s midlevel bureaucracy has either fled the country or
been purged in de-Ba’athification, [and] a lot of ministers are politically
appointed and not professional,” Yahia Said, director of Iraq Revenue Watch,
told the Moonie controlled newspaper. “The result is that orders go out from
the ministers in Baghdad, but there is no structure or staff at the middle
level to carry out the instructions.”

As should be expected, the Bush administration tried to blame
the victim. The “Bush administration, citing unofficial Iraqi data, reported in
September that Iraq’s central government ministries had spent 24 percent of
their 2007 capital projects budget as of July 15,” even though “this report is
not consistent with Iraq’s official expenditure reports, which show that the
central ministries had spent only 4.4 percent of their investment budget as of
August 2007,” according to Said. “U.S. and foreign officials,” in other words
neocons and their partners in crime, the financial sector neolibs, “told the
GAO that weaknesses in Iraqi procurement, budgeting, and accounting procedures
had stymied the completion of projects.”

“Provincial governments, which had little or no control of
their finances under Saddam Hussein, are struggling to spend the money they
have under new budget systems, said Joseph Saloom, an adviser to David
Satterfield, the senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
coordinator for Iraq.”

As the corporate media has told us for years now, the Iraqis
are to blame, as they are unable to get a “central government up and running,”
never mind their country is a depleted uranium poisoned wasteland, the civilian
infrastructure is decimated, crime is rampant, and various death squads run in
the streets. Most “of the people had never been ministers before, they had
never managed large budgets,” explained Mr. Said. It’s all the fault of those
silly Arabs, don’t you know.

Meanwhile, the money is “piling up” over at the Federal
Reserve, whose name has the same significance as Federal Express, that is to
say there is nothing federal about it. No doubt it will disappear soon enough,
same as trillions disappeared from the coffers over at the Pentagon.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say the Iraqis, indeed, the
American people, are being played, same as a clueless bystander falls victim to
a confidence game. But for the latter this is hardly a concern, mostly because
the average person…distracted by plasma televisions, play stations, and John
McCain’s Timetables…does not read the Washington Times and is thus none the
wiser.

Dare I say it is a near perfect situation for the crooks at
the Federal Reserve?

Thank you for reading

And now for the original story.....

The Wall Street Journal has agreed to publish a full-page ad in which the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee charges
the U.S. government surreptitiously utilizes gold reserves to engage in
international swaps and other market manipulations.

"Anybody Seen
Our Gold?" is the title of the ad, which alleges U.S. gold reserves
held at depositories such as Fort Knox and West Point may have been
seriously depleted. GATA asserts U.S. gold reserves are being shipped
overseas to settle complex transactions utilized by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury to suppress the price of the precious metal.

"The objective
of this manipulation is to conceal the mismanagement of the U.S. dollar
so that it might retain its function as the world's reserve currency," the ad copy reads in a pre-publication version GATA provided.

The U.S. Treasury denies the claim, insisting the stock is accounted for regularly.

GATA's
chairman, William J. Murphy III, said his group was willing to pay
the Wall Street Journal's cost of $264,000 to run the ad "to get the
message out that the U.S. enters world markets without public
disclosure to prop up the dollar and depress the price of gold."

GATA cites as
evidence the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee reports dating back
to Jan. 31, 1995, showing the U.S. Treasury Department's Exchange
Stabilization Fund had undertaken gold swaps.

GATA, a
non-profit 501 headquartered in Manchester, Conn., further asserts the
federal government strategy to manipulate the price of gold has begun
to fail.

"Gold's recent
rise toward $900 per ounce shows that the price suppression scheme is
faltering," the GATA ad reads. "When it is widely understood how
central banks have been suppressing gold, its price may rise to $3,000
or $5,000 an ounce or more."

"The gold reserves of the United States have not been independently audited for half a century," the ad charges.

The U.S. Treasury disagrees.

"While the entire gold stock is
not physically re-counted in any one year, over a period of years, by
our continuous sampling process, the entire stock has been counted, and
is effectively re-inventoried," Rich Delmar, counsel to Treasury's
inspector general said.

Delmar explained that the annual Office of Inspector General audits of
mint facilities involves a physical inspection of certain vaults, which
are subject to a 100-percent bar count and assaying. At the end of the
inspection, each vault is sealed.

"During each
visit, all previously sealed vaults are checked to ensure that the
seals have not been compromised or tampered with," he wrote. "This
process is the basis for the conclusion that there has been a complete
physical inventory."

Delmar said the OIG's work consists of more than reviewing documents.

"Our auditors
physically observe the inventory work done at the mint facilities, and
we are responsible for the assay sampling process," he said.

The
Treasury was asked if there is a comprehensive listing and accounting of any
encumbrances or other restrictions on the gold in the U.S. Mint that
may affect ownership.

"This is not within OIG's purview," Delmar responded. "You may want to ask the mint directly."

'Dodging the question'

Murphy called the response "ridiculous."

"The mint does
not make complex gold transactions with other countries," he said.
"That is the role for the U.S. Treasury. The mint just houses the gold.
The Treasury is dodging the question."

GATA has filed
a Freedom of Information Request asking the Fed and Treasury to
disclose information on encumbrances and swapping or leasing of U.S.
gold.

"The Fed and
Treasury have not even acknowledged receiving our FOIA request," Murphy
said. "It's idiotic to tell you that the mint would have that
knowledge."

Murphy asked,
"Is the gold in the mint truly U.S. gold reserves or is it just
'custodial gold' held for some other country? That's why we need to
know what encumbrances there are on the gold as well as whether any
U.S. gold has been shipped overseas to fulfill swap obligations."

The 2006 annual report published on the website of the U.S. Mint lists KPMG as outside auditor.

The KPMG signed
audit report in the 2006 Annual Report of the U.S. Mint takes full
responsibility for auditing the balance sheets and includes a statement
of the custodial activity of U.S. gold reserves.

According to the balance sheets, custodial gold and silver reserves make up 90 percent of the U.S. Mint's total assets.

Still, there is
no specific statement in the U.S. Mint's annual report or the KPMG
audit report describing any KPMG involvement in a physical inspection
of the gold reserves.

KPMG's role as independent auditor for the U.S. Mint is also confirmed in the 2006 audit report prepared by the Office of Inspector General of the Treasury.

Dan Ginsburg, a
KPMG spokesman, declined to provide any detail concerning his
company's audit procedures for the U.S. Mint, citing client
confidentiality.

Greater force

Craig R. Smith, founder of Swiss America Trading Corp., said he accepts the GATA arguments because "there has to be a force greater than normal market conditions that has repressed the price of gold."

Smith noted any
number of financial crises since the late 1980s that "should have
propelled gold way beyond the 1980 high of $850," including the savings
and loan debacle and the birth of the Resolution Trust Corporation, as
well as the on-going devaluation of the U.S. dollar against virtually
all major foreign currencies.

"Gold has been
playing catch-up with current world economic conditions, and future movements should easily prove gold to be
a great value at $900 an ounce. That price will look cheap going
forward as the world starts to turn its back on debt-laden currencies
and returns to money with a real value."

But the U.S. Treasury, in a statement on its website, denies the Exchange Stabilization Fund has been used to manipulate gold prices.

"The ESF does
not engage in any transactions in the market for any metal such as
gold, either in spot markets or in any of its derivative forms," the
Treasury statement declares. "We would like to emphasize that the
Treasury Department does not seek to manipulate the price of gold or
any other metal by intervening in or otherwise interfering with the
market."

Yvanka Wallner,
advertising sales representative for the Wall Street Journal in New
York City, said the GATA ad has been approved by the
Journal's lawyers and is being prepared to be run next week.

Gold yesterday closed at an all-time high of $911 an ounce, up $28, on a weaker dollar and higher oil prices.

 "I KILLED THE BANK!" Andrew Jackson