I'm sure you are a very busy man. Have a great day and I hope for your sake it is not 'insignificant' and unquantifiable.
I was correct. July 17, 2015 3:05 pm China breaks 6-year silence on gold reserves http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2c67f078-2c6d-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7.html "The country's central bank said its gold reserves were 1,658 tonnes (53.31m fine troy ounces) as of the end of June. In April 2009, reserves were 1,054 tonnes. " So.................enjoy. Billy Meier and FIGU are an evil cult. They have a murderous agenda based on humiliating women and subjecting them to forced abortion and mandatory pregnancy tests. They have links to the Russian government. Putin and Assad created ISIS to destroy the FSA, attack the US client government in Iraq and keep Assad in power as a military client and naval base provider at Tartus. Russian SF are acting as proxies for assad and passing communications intelligence to ISIS and co-ordinating the Syrian air force with ISIS offensives Chinas economy is in freefall and they are preparing to forment a conflict with Russia on their northern border to divert hostility from the oligarchy. Zero Hedge is a Russian psyop. Interest rates will not be raised by the fed. WW3 started when ISIS attacked Iraq.
I work with jewellery and I can tell you that a general rule of thumb is for semi-prescious jewellery (silver and semi precious stones) the value can be approximated at 50% (Metal) -50% (Stone and Jewellers cost). For Precious jewellery (Gold with Precious stones) its more like 10% (Metal) - 90% (Stone and Jewellers Cost). This isn't a hard and fast rule, but it generally works as an approximation. The other tidbit that may be useful is that the average ring will have about 1/3rd and oz of metal (regardless of if its gold or silver). Again, not a hard and fast rule, but you can use this approximate the number of items of jewellery China would have to be exporting to legitimately be using their metals for jewellery manufacturing. Also, has anyone here actually purchased 'Chinese Silver Jewellery' in the past few years? It's mostly tin with a .925 Sterling Silver Stamp on it. I don't trust their jewellers and I don't trust their 'official numbers' either.
Gold is actually used for stuff other than hoarding and jewellery. Its used in every smartphone, memory card, motherboard etc. It is also turned into gold leaf and used in craft, religion, and even in cooking. Hundreds of tonnes are used every year, most of it being eventually recycled. Its a uniquely useful metal and its annoying how many people think its just for decoration. Also the BRICS currency reserve bank is not a conspiracy theory, it already exists with an apparent capitalisation of $100Billion (which is in part chinese gold). Any currency exchange system includes a percentage of gold as a buffer (as does the US) but that is completely different to having a gold backed currency which no governments advocate. Old standard was 20% gold 80% currency, so do the math = ~600 tonnes gold required So yes the chinese have been buying up gold to fund their own bank, just like they've been selling off US bonds to buy rubles, rupees, rand and raels. Its not because their economy is collapsing, its a three part plan to bypass the US dollar's reserve currency status as all these countries have had banking sanctions impact their trade and are sick of the US/Europe calling all the shots. Part one is the currency reserve so all their trades will be settled in their own currencies. (DONE) Part two is the formation of their own infrastructure development bank to compete with the world bank/imf. (DONE) Part three is their own currency transfer service to replace/compete with SWIFT. Despite BRICS having been working on this for nearly a decade it gets very little media coverage in the west, and obviously they haven't gone blabbing to the world "hey we're going to set up our own global banking system to end your monopoly control of world finance". Hence the reason they kept their gold stockpiling a state secret until they completed their main purchase and it was time to start the bank. Its not going to have much impact on the price of gold either way unless it results in a long term decline of the US dollar and Americans start hoarding again. Yeah, theres an el cheapo tin alloy called 'tibetan silver' - some sellers like to leave out the tibetan part, but then theres also a cheapo european alloy called 'german silver' and some dodgy Euro sellers only mention the german part in the fine print. Anywhere you go theres always the occasional shyster.
