Production and consumption

The total amount of gold mined from the earth would fit into the size of an Olympic swimming pool or half of a football pitch (a square of 50 x 50 metres and 5 metres deep). If we distributed all the available gold in the world between all of us, the total world population, we could only get 1/3 of an ounce each.

Gold cannot be destroyed as an element, it can only be combined to alloy with other metals, or buried under ground, so you can always return to the inventory of stocks through recycling or mining.

However, the volume of annual trade physical gold is greater than global production.

Where does the excess come from?

Of course they come from the reserves of the central banks of the West: the Federal Reserve of the United States, the reserves of the central banks, the European Central Bank owners, and others under the Western influence as the Central Bank of Switzerland, who's gold reserves have fallen from 40 percent in 1970 to less than 8% today.

Can the control that these central banks have had on the price of gold endure much longer?

No one can know exactly when reserves which keep the price under control will finish, but there are obvious symptoms:

- Germany requested the repatriation of their reserves deposited in New York (600 tons) since the end of the second world war in 2013. The response was a plan for a phased repatriation, which will not be completed until 2020. The only realistic explanation for this delay is that gold is no longer kept in custody in New York. Another indication that the gold originally deposited is not there is the first 5 tons returned were not antique pre-war German gold, but newly manufactured ingots.

- Subsequently, countries such as Holland, France, Ecuador and Poland have also asked for the repatriation of their gold. The Federal Reserve refuses to an inspection of the gold, while requests for repatriation are accelerated.

- China is draining the Asian and Pacific environment of petrodollars. Its commitment to internationalize its currency and support it in any way with gold ensures a strong demand in the future.

- Negative interest in the financial system will force the exit of capital to safe havens such as gold, now that the lack of profitability in bonds and shares tips the balance in favor of gold, for their safety.