Chavez: Venezuela recalling $11B in gold reserves

Source: Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez announced Wednesday he is nationalizing Venezuela's gold mining industry and intends to bring home $11 billion in gold reserves currently held in U.S. and European banks.

He said the recall of the gold reserves is intended to help protect this oil-producing country from the economic woes in the United States and Europe.

"We're going to start to bring back our gold to the Central Bank," Chavez said in a telephone call broadcast live on state television.

It wasn't clear how soon the overseas gold reserves are to be brought to Venezuela.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/chavez-venezuela-recalling-11b-gold-reserves-222641158.html

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Activist News http://activistnews.blogspot.com/

:popcorn:

:tinfoilhat:

But Chavez will need to watch his back even more carefully - the Russians won't be happy about this.

what do economics have to do with anything, this idiot just told everyone in the world that he will be moving billions of dollars of physical gold to a bank in Venezuela. If he really is worried about the safety of his nations holdings move the shit to Switzerland.

The Swiss are so paranoid these days about harboring funds of dictators
or drug lords that Chávez would have a hard time opening a Visa Card
account there these days.

Even democratically elected "líderes" can become dictators. In 1933, Hitler was democratically elected
and took office as Reichskanzler all legally and properly. It's what someone does once he's in power
that determines whether or not he's a dictator, not how clever his election campaign was to get him/her there.

is he mean to the wealthy, is that why? The wealthy that have been stepping on the necks of the indigenous and poor? Who was the real dictator in Venezuela I guess depends on your own economic interests. If ya care about ordinary people, you want to see a leader who will strong arm the economic oppression and those promoting that system. He is only a dictator to most here because he doesn't play along with the oligarchy(like Obama does) that has stomped all over Venezuela for many years.

Unlike Hitler, Chavez never suspended public elections once his party gained power, nor did he encourage mass murder of people who oppose him or his policies, nor did he liquidate entire political parties opposed to him by executing them all. If Chavez were to qualify as a dictator, he'd likely have banned any and all elections a long time ago in that country.

"It's what someone does once he's in power"
do you really want to go there with your Hitler analogy?

Lets start with the Reichstag Fire Decree (27 February 1933), followed by the Enabling Act of March 1933, and by 1934 the situation in Germany was a legally and overtly constituted single party dictatorship that was in power in Germany until the end in 1945.

So the equivalent acts in Venezuela that would justify your assertion are?

IIRC, Hitler was appointed chancellor by President Hindenburg, then he stepped into the gap when Hindenburg died of natural causes.

Hitler was really more of an evil President Ford.

Or did I miss the sarcasm?

When "l'état, c'est moi," who needs a personal account?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. The propaganda has become so preposterous that these sorts of statements can be made with no apparent embarrassment.

And as another poster pointed out, the Swiss are good for holding if you don't plan on getting assets frozen by the international community.

and so will China, Brazil (and possible some of the UNASUR nations and the proposed Bank of the South.)

This is what the AP does not tell you (from the Wall Street Journal)

--- snip -----

The announcement comes one day after documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal showed that the Venezuelan government plans to transfer billions of dollars in cash reserves held abroad to banks in Russia, China and Brazil and tons of gold from European banks to its own central bank vaults. According to the documents, the South American country aims to move 211 tons of gold it keeps abroad and values at $11 billion to the central bank in Caracas, where the government keeps its remaining 154 tons of bullion.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903596904...



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Venezuela's Central Bank President Nelson Merentes today said Venezuela's gold began to be taken out of the country because of a political decision made in 1980, when the nation's gold was transferred to international banks by order of the International Monetary Fund, without Venezuela ever obtaining any benefit.

(El presidente del BCV, Nelson Merentes, explicó que los activos auríferos de Venezuela comenzaron a sacarse del país por una decisión política tomada en 1980, cuando el oro nacional fue movido a la banca internacional por ordenes del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), sin que Venezuela obtuviera beneficio alguno.)

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Chavez said the member of UNASUR have close to 600 billion dollars in reserves in the banks of the north (U.S., Canada and Europe). "Until when do we, the nations of the South, have to finance the development of the North. That, precisely, is economic imperalism. The hour has come. That's enough."

“Cerca de 600 mil millones de dólares de las reservas de los países de Unasur están en los bancos del norte. (...) ¿Hasta cuándo los países del Sur vamos a financiar el desarrollo del Norte? Ese es, precisamente, el imperialismo económico. Llegó la hora. ¡Ya está bueno!”

More interesting details for readers of Spanish

http://www.telesurtv.net/secciones/noticias/96593-NN/presidente-chavez-autoriza-plan-para-proteger-reservas-internacionales-en-riesgo/

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Bottom line, it is Venezuela's gold, to do whatever they want with it.

Chavez is merely reclaiming it from foreign banks, which may be risk prone and which have never paid Venezuela interest for using the billions in bullion to lend to other countries (and of course charge the third parties interest.)

(edit grammar, one word)

Thank you for supplying the deliberately withheld facts.

Hard to imagine ANYONE would attempt to smear this decision in spite of the truth.

... to cause instantaneous knee-jerk reactions, often from folks who (through no fault of their own) are not aware of the full facts of a given situation (as in the AP article).

What I do is go to official and opposition Spanish-language media to find out what the AP, Reuters and others may be spinning in their coverage of Venezuela.

Many times it is startling.

A U.S. Social Security check will go a long way in Venezuela!

Thank you for posting!

The gold doesn't belong to the foreign banks and can't be lent out (legally).

The move will cost about 10 years worth of fees which are relatively small.

Chavez's statement that "the member of UNASUR have close to 600 billion dollars in reserves in the banks of the north (U.S., Canada and Europe). "Until when do we, the nations of the South, have to finance the development of the North. That, precisely, is economic imperalism. The hour has come. That's enough." has no basis in reality. The gold reserves accrue no interest either to the banks that hold them or to the countries that own them. Chavez is simply pandering to economic illiterates with his statement.

See: on for example Iran (threat of sanctions, if Ven. ignores the threat then its assets are screwed; the US is already planning to stop buying Venezuelan oil).

Probably sold the same gold a few times.

There are a few reasons he might be doing this.

I suspect the primary reason is to expose the US banks, who will not be able to deliver. Another possibility is to put them someplace that they can't be taken as compensation over the nationalization of businesses.

The right-wingers in Miami are claiming that the reason is so that Chavez and his crew can steal them (more specifically, that his underlying are worried about his health and want to cash in before he is gone), but that doesn't make much sense. Simply selling the gold and stealing the proceeds would seem to draw a lot less attention.

...to release the holdings, if they don't have it stored in their own vault somewhere (as far as I can tell they don't).

It's been speculated by quite a few, including myself, that they are charging people to store the gold that they have actually sold. This has known to have happened in silver a few years ago.

... sort of a 'withdrawal' fee, as it were. Just a bit of levity, folks...

because he watches the evening news just like everybody else...when your people get angry and want to toss you out, other countries like to freeze your resources. He knows his day is coming. Either that, or he knows our ship is sinking.

Chavez is protecting the nation's assets during a period of global financial instability.

Do they even have it, or has most of it already been siphoned off to an "undisclosed location"?

"Gold" is in arbitrary fantasy holdings that don't really exist, but if some group or country requests it it's not hard to go after the various reserve banks, it'll likely come out of the Federal Reserve Holding where banks like to lock their gold up.

I'm sure they'll request Venezuelan taxpayers to pay for whatever logistical issues arise. Should be pennies of course.

It is good that Chavez is finally stopping gold investment in imperialist countries. Now if only he'd stop selling oil to imperialists and taking massive loans out with authoritarians.

At today's gold price ($1790), that's 191,143 kilo bars, or less than 192 metric tons.
A small cargo ship could handle that easily. I wouldn't want to negotiate the insurance
policy, but it could be done. It could be moved easily out of the New York Fed, where most
gold in the USA belonging to foreign governments is stored. Their absence might make just
enough room for a small desk and a new coffee-dispensing machine.

As there is estimated (and this might be off) to be about 158,000 metric tons of gold in the
world, 192 out of 158,000 will not make ripples in the markets unless it dumped in one go.

As it is not on our books, whether Venezuela stores it with us or in Caracas is no skin off of
our back, and we would never seize it because we need to keep importing Venezuela's oil. We can
seize all the gold in the NY Fed we want, but gold is not going to make our cars run or our
airplanes fly.

Even most Republicans can probably figure that one out.

We don't need Venezuelan oil, we're on a road map to get off of Venezuelan oil.

Having freezable assets are how the United States flex's its muscles on a global scale.

As far as insurance on the ship, that's not too big of a worry, paid mercenaries are easy to come by. What I'd be worried about are the trucks that offload the gold and store it in some place in Venezuela.

I'm not worried about the NY end--it's after the boat leaves that things could get hairy.
A few billion aboard one ship in negotiable bullion should be enough to lure half the boats
in Somalia.

That's what all the other despots do.

Probably mainly to avoid having to pay for whatever the cleptocracy decides to confiscate this week (although it has been a while since I read about any more nationalizations). Assets held by a third party that can be siezed are worth what they are worth while assets held by Chavez is worthless. They have a certain moderating effect, this will probably drive up intrests and reduce further the willingness of foreign investors to do business with Venezuela.

Maybe a few countries as part of their foreign policy (Russia & China) but an uninsured investor would be crazy for trusting a contract they signed with Venezuela.

As of last April, Exxon was still suing Venezuela for 7 billion dollars over a nationalization. I don't see why any company would invest in Venezuela.

Exxon Mobil v. Petroleos de Venezuela SA

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/exxon_mobils_dispute_with_venezuela_has_global_implications/

He knows the value of gold.