The IMF gold has serious geo-political ramifications in the background because of the nature of foreign exchange reserves, credit default swaps and gold.  Wikipedia:

South Korea and Japan are both home to large numbers of United States troops and neither are going to invite a nuclear attack.  The Kuomintang, which the US backed, retreated to Taiwan when they lost power and China still asserts their ownership over the tiny island and the US continues to honor their agreement to defend Taiwan.  Russia has been discharging dollars and acquiring gold while Brazil is bucking the buck.  Neither China nor India have significant reported physical gold holdings; they need a hedge to the major currency illusions.  In my book The Great Credit Contraction the liquidity pyramid represents the FRN$ will be the last major currency to evaporate.

The Euro’s evaporation has increased and ultimately has only one outcome.  Sure, Germany wants to retain its voice on the world stage and is faced with a Hobson’s choice of bailing out Greece and eventually the other unproductive free-riding members of the Euro or let the Euro evaporate and lose their relevance on the world stage because Germany only matters if Europe as a whole matters.

CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS

But the Damocles sword of credit default swaps, which is falling toward’s Greece, can, ultimately, be measured only against gold because gold is no-one’s liability.  Just like the Chinese have feigned their interest in acquiring gold; many sophisticated investors have feigned ignorance of gold’s monetary role.  Many sophisticated investors, like George Soros who broke the Bank of England doubled his gold position in Q1 2010, Paul Tudor of Tudor Investments, John Paulson, David Einhorn, Eric Sprott, Jim Rogers, Peter Schiff, John Embry and many others are likewise allocating their capital based on the premise that gold is a major world currency.

Even Janet Tavakoli, a former adjunct associate professor of derivatives at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, and author of six books on derivatives recently wrote:

U.S. credit default swaps currently trade in euros. After all, if the U.S. defaults, who will want payment in devalued U.S. dollars? The euro recently weakened relative to the dollar, and market participants are calling for contracts that require payment in gold. If they get their way, speculators on the winning side of a price move will demand collateral paid in gold.

The market can create an unlimited number of these contracts very rapidly. The U.S. wouldn’t have to ever default to trigger a major disruption in the gold market.

The fiat currency and fractional reserve banking system is merely a confidence game built on an illusion and fraud.  Fiat currency is to be valued like the common stock of a government and in gold.  As such the current system will end and holder’s of capital will demand to be shown the money.  Just ask Harry Reid about karma.

The price of gold in evaporating currencies would not so much create a disruption in the gold market as cause a serious loss of confidence in the current system which would result in a tremendous increase in gold’s liquidity, hopefully through use by individuals in ordinary daily activities like what happened in Zimbabwe last year.  After all, who really needs to use fiat currency illusions and why?  In this case, we are seeing both China and India demanding to see the IMF’s gold, the Damocles sword jitters and there is only one protection.  Assets with intrinsic value.

Related posts:

1. In Defense of Speculators, Part III: Credit-Default Swaps
2. Euro Gold And The Euro Zone
3. Gold And FRN$ Correlation
4. Ten Years of the Euro
5. Niall Ferguson on Gold