All we hear is credit crunch, economy crash, subprime crisis. And, indeed, we also know that people suffer; and I’m not talking about these bankers and brokers. Some of us really have it short these days, and apparently the unemployment rates around the world have never been so high.

 Of all things macroeconomics, the most abstract value notion has always been the monetary power of federal and national banks to me. Interest rates, exchange rates, devaluation, you get it-BORING. Until you come across this kind of article, or this one.

   These gold reserves ain’t credit lines on a computer-they supposedly are real, well hidden and conserved in places like Fort Knox, Kentucky or 33 Liberty Street, New York or even under beautiful Swiss squares like this one in Zurich:

  What in the world could have been holding burglars from ever trying to stick one of these places up? I can probably imagine the army of a belligerent neighbor nation putting his hand on it-it happened many times before. But an international Robin Hood stick-up kid organization, from the City Of God to the Slumdog Millionaire children scheming on a Geneva heist, now that’s a credit crunch aftermath I’d really want to see happen.

     M.

PS: By the way, France supposedly has the 3rd or 4th gold reserve in the world!? Where is all this money hidden??