Brown and out... or mabe not quite?

[Saorsa1]

From the SCOTS INDEPENDENT website magazine.

Gold plated

I am not quite sure as to why I am thinking of gold prices just now, but something has been niggling away at the back of my mind, as I watch and listen to the Labour apparatchiks in the Scottish Parliament accusing the SNP in general and John Swinney in particular, of incompetence, but more of that later.

In 1999, after, if you will recall, an incoming Labour government inherited a robust economy from the Tories at the 1997 General Election, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, one Gordon Brown, decided to sell off more than half of Britain’s gold reserves. Well first of all it was stated that he would sell only 3% of the reserves, but then it transpired it was 3% of the total reserves, including foreign currency! The financiers were aghast – gold was at a 20 year low, surely this was no time to flog off the family silver (deliberate pun), the economy being robust and all that?

Nobody seems to know who advised him, and he has kept schtum ever since, but it was to sell gold and buy in dollars, euros and yen. The public statement that this was going to happen was enough for the spivs and speculators, where “Everyone and his grandmother” were shorting the market to drive the price down; indeed the episode was known in the trade as the “Brown Bottom” – work on that analogy if you will. After this decision, 15 of European central banks signed an agreement not to sell gold!

Why, raise the matter now? Well we hear Mr Brown is rumoured to be getting involved in the Scottish Elections, so it is worth reiterating some facts. At the time, and because of the very public methods used, the price was driven down, and the average price for the 400 tons was $275 per ounce – yes dollars – not pounds. I did a few calculations, and 400 tons at 2240 lbs per ton comes to 896,000 pounds; there are 16 ounces in a pound, so that means he sold 14,336,000 ounces of gold at $275. This equals $3,942,400,000 - almost 4 billion dollars, spent on dollars, euros and yen.

As I write, the price per ounce for gold is $1382.33 per ounce ( it moves upward every time I look!), and my calculator tells me that comes to $19, 817, 082, 880, or almost $16 billion more than he got in 1999; I do not know how the dollar, the euro and the yen have fared between 1999 and now, but my general impression is that Americans do not want to come here because the dollar is not doing well. In any event, Britain’s reserves would have been $16 billion higher in these straitened times – Hail the economic genius!

[Saorsa1]

Clearly being an utter tit is no obstacle to becoming a Labour chancellor of the exchequer and eventually a 'prime minister' (supposedly the best or thereabouts that a party has to offer).

[wullie m]

Is there anybody living near North Queensferry who could nip up and keek through the Broon's letterbox in case he's lying behind the door. The guy hasn't been seen for weeks and I'm terribly worried!

wullie.