by Craig Hemke, Sprott Money:
A hot topic this month has been the idea of an official gold price revaluation from the U.S. government. We’ve used this space to discuss the possibility for each of the past three weeks. Let’s do so again today.
Let’s start with a summary of our past three updates. First, here are the links:
- https://www.sprottmoney.com/blog/on-tariffs-gold-prices
- https://www.sprottmoney.com/blog/recent-developments-gold-silver
- https://www.sprottmoney.com/blog/some-golden-speculation
U.S. Gold Repatriation and Monetization Plans
In short, here’s what I believe is happening…
Since December, the U.S. has been rapidly repatriating/onshoring gold in preparation from some sort of “monetization”, sometime within the next twelve months. Here again is SecTreas Bessent with his remarks alongside President Trump on February 3:
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Now before we go any further, understand that Bessent was forced into what seemed like a denial of all this last week during an appearance on Bloomberg TV. When pressed regarding a “gold revaluation”, Bessent stated “that’s not what I had in mind”. See for yourself:
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says, “all the gold is there,” as he has no plans to visit Fort Knox or to revalue gold reserves in a sovereign wealth fund https://t.co/jjpfgt8acn— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) February 20, 2025
Contradictory Statements and Financial Realities
That’s nice. However, I think he’s not being truthful. Check the other statements he makes:
- “We do an audit every year” – false
- “All the gold is there”, per a report of September 30, 2024″ – false
- “Any senator who wants to come and visit can arrange a visit” – false
And what if Bessent had said “yes, we plan to revalue gold sometime soon”. Can you even imagine the firestorm that would have set off? What might have been the impact on price and how might that have effected the ongoing U.S. effort to onshore gold? OF COURSE he denied the revaluation plans, even as he contradicted his own statement from two weeks earlier.
The U.S. Government’s Balance Sheet Crisis
At this point, let’s go back to that Oval Office statement of February 3. Again…what did he say?
“We’re going to monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet and put the assets to work”.
OK, let’s start there. I’m no accountant but I do know that every balance sheet should show equal assets and liabilities. But have you ever considered the current position of the U.S. government balance sheet? You know all about the liabilities, of course. The current level of existing debt alone is about $36.5T. That debt is a liability, which must mean that the U.S. also has at least $36.5T is assets, right? Right?!? Nope. From the latest official numbers provided by the U.S. Treasury, the U.S. officially has just 5.66T in assets.
https://fiscal.treasury.gov/reports-statements/financial-report/balance-sheets.html
Putting it all together, that’s a $39TRILLION hole in the U.S. government balance sheet. Since the liability side keeps worsening, something is going to need to be done about the asset side and, unless the government has plans to confiscate and/or nationalize the private sector, then they’re only going to have their current assets to work with.
