What is Fort Knox really for

They held there not only gold, but artifacts too, look at this: en.wikipedia.org... (in section The Regalia in modern times)

The only question that concerns me is, What if Fort Knox is not what it seems? What if the building itself is just a "face piece", and actually hides a bigger secret? My reasoning for this is the lack of pre-build, and actual build, construction evedence, things like dirt removal, building supplies, to and off the site. Could this be a real query, or is it just another "ghost-chaser" query?

Originally posted by EnlightenUp
reply to post by tall_girl

 

There isn't enough gold mined in all of human history to back the money-- approximately $250 B if I recall correctly. So to that I agree, you can't back the money with gold. Money is an illusion anyway.

I found this kinda interesting, so i did some research and calculation...

Current Gold Prices... $24,691/kg, or $24,691,000/tonne Source:goldprice.org

Current National Debt... almost $10,700,000,000,000 Source: zfacts.com

Sooo...
National Debt / Current Value = Gold Needed for National Debt

$10,700,000,000,000/ $24,691,000/tonne = 433,356 tonnes of gold.


According to a sourced wikipedia entry, it is estimated that as of 2001, all the gold ever mined totaled 145,000 tonnes.

The United States officially has around 8,000 tonnes, of the world's nearly 30,000 tonnes in reserve.

Even if the United States had all 145,000 tonnes, that would only account for 3.58 trillion of the 10.7 trillion dollar debt.

So even with todays inflated gold prices (or should I say devalued dollar), your assertation still proves to be true.

reply to post by Don Wahn


Fort Knox is the main headquarters of the mechanized Calvary, it is a tank base. It started as a Calvary base when they still used horses in the U.S. Cavalry. The Gold Depository was added later and the reason it is "supposed to be there is the Constitution says we must have enough Gold in reserve for every dollar out there, but that was before the dollar became a shadow of money, a fiat currency backed by nothing.

There are many rumors that the FEDERAL RESERVE (private banker families) took the gold as collateral on the debt.

The one thing that comes to my mind is the - ARK.

The Presidents Book (mentioned in National Tresure) is held here.

reply to post by theindependentjournal


I used to live in Radcliff, Kentucky which is about 8 miles away from Ft. Knox. I think the biggest thing that sticks out about "The Vault" is that from the outside it really doesn't seem like a super high-tech security installation. Frankly, it is really just a building sitting there by itself, with the only visible deterrent being a wired fence and a security booth with a camera overlooking the entrance. My family and I would pass by it literally everyday since my father worked on base, and I really just took it in as part of the scenery.

When I was in school, they would have military representatives come to our classroom and explain the history about "The Vault." They would even give us little pictures of the gold bars that were inside of it, and stated that they used to give tours but stopped doing so around the 1960's.

I honestly believe that there is not that much "bounty" in there other than gold. Like I said, there is a fence and a gate separating the entrance. You could argue that the greatest security feature of all is the military base which is located a few miles away from the complex, but from the outside it really isn't that spectacular.

reply to post by sneaky


Well what do you expect? Armed guards all over the roof or something? The place is probably locked and alarmed pretty well, and you can't go blowing up the walls without somebody noticing. Maybe some movie-protagonist level superspy could get in and nick a few bars, but to try to make off with any significant amount of loot would certainly get the military's attention. They've got attack helicopter squadrons, so there's really no way someone could make a getaway.

A fence and a bunch of signs, plus a few security cameras should be a plenty good deterrent when there's a bunch of tanks and Apache helicopters on call a just a few miles away.

A bit of trivia. The gold in Ft. Knox represents (represented?) the tangible wealth of the American people. The US was on the gold standard (where one dollar was redeemable for so many grams of gold or silver) until the Rederal Reserve Act of 1913. This was a beautiful system, because it limited government spending to only what they could back with their gold or silver at a fixed rate of exchange. The Fed progressively lowered the amount of gold you could redeem for your dollar (inflation) then eliminated any gold or silver connection whatsoever under Nixon in 1971. Once free of any connection to finite precious metals, our government was free to print as much currency, or sell as many Treasury bills and bonds as needed to run their wars and other government programs, all backed by nothing more than the 'good faith' effort of our nation to honor its debt.

Fast forward to today and Ron Paul. He based his assumption that the gold was missing from Ft. Knox when, a few years back, he headed up a congressional committee specifically tasked with making a physical inventory of the gold there-- they were denied access! Let that one sink in for a moment. Instead, they were handed paperwork 'showing' how much gold was stored. If not mistaken, I think there were supposed to be over 250,000,000 ounces or 8 tons.

Dr, Paul goes further to explain in his best seller 'Revolution A Manifesto' that he suspects the gold has been used to prop up the massive overprinting of the dollar by secretly dumping large quantities of it on the world market. How that works is precious metals function as the canary in the coal mine-- when gold and silver prices increase, it's an indication of overcreation of money and its end result- inflation. Glut the gold and silver markets, and prices stay low, while dollar stays 'strong'. Of course, this only works as long as you have gold to spend, which I suspect explains the reluctance to have any independent verification of exactly how much (if any) remains in Ft. Knox.

We are now in the heretofore unknown situation of very high demand for precious metals as a hedge against inflation, but very little physical inventory to be had. Most suppliers have a waiting list for the more popular coins with backorders common. For this reason, I would not advise investing in gold or silver mining shares, but in the metal itself, with your taking physical delivery.

For the first time in history, we have a situation where we 'know' the Federal Reserve

[edit on 2-2-2009 by h5mind]

So if our gold is supposed to back up the american dollar so that the dollar is worth a dollar then the more we print off the less our dollar is worth. Could this be a cause of our Bad Economy right Now ? And what happens when our money is sent to mexico because its worth twice as much there ? Seems like our country is last in line for any good changes if you are twice as rich over the border ...