How much did they cost?
My bet, over $100k each.
US military police stationed at Fort Knox, home among other things to the United States Bullion Depository, are reportedly none too pleased at having to patrol in rather feeble solar-powered electric golf carts in line with Pentagon efforts to be more environmentally friendly. The solar powered patrol vehicle employed by the …
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And the military police would have no part of it, even if it *did* move - They mostly just write tickets and patrol fencelines.
The gold just sits there in the vaults. Sometimes technical ownership of some portions of it changes hands, but the gold itself just collects dust.
Great! So the Federal government of the United States is going all 'environmentally friendly' by introducing this cart.
So what about all the energy used to extract and refine that 5,000 tons of gold. Which apparently is roughly 2.5% of all the gold ever refined throughout human history. Just to store it in a building for 70+ years doing nothing. Citiziens aren't even allowed to view it, to see how shiny it is!
With an infantry division and an additional infantry combat team, not to mention an aviation regiment (read: Helicopters, including gunships), there is more than enough anti-air capacity on the base to turn Pussy Galore's friends and family into so much gold-plated airborn particulate matter (though that might lower the air quality some, and thus be considered 'not green').
Really, now - If there's a serious problem, the MPs (not members of parliment!) can call on the services of a metric fuckton of Bradely IFVs. There are few high-speed pursuit problems that cannot be solved by a steady tradewind of cannon fire.
I hope they have a big fence around the whole place.
This week, I rode my electric bike into a golf course, and the guard started chasing me around in a golf cart. Very funny, comic in a way. The thing is... my electric bike, at 20mph, is a LOT faster than his electric golf cart. He never got close to me.
From wikipedia: 4578 metric tons. (5046 tons, 147.2 million troy ounces.)
Approximately 2.5% of all the gold ever refined throughout human history.
Second in size to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in Manhattan, which has 7000 metric tons. (7716 tons, 225.1 million troy ounces.)
Unlike most police, overmatched solar-kart-driving cops and bicycle-riding Mint Police can call on the 16th Cavalry Regiment and 194th Armored Brigade conveniently based nearby and probably more than willing to help chase down any serious gold thieves. They have vehicles of an entirely different sort of green.
The US Mints are in Denver and Philadelphia, and that I know of, the US hasn't minted gold in nearly a century. The Mint in Denver used to have rolls of less valuable metals stored in public view behind chain link topped with barbed wire. As i recall it, the property really didn't call for a bicycle to get around.
It needs the wheel base widened by about a meter and the cab could stay the same size. Center of gravity is to high. Wonder if the cab panels are plastic and the frame Al?
Though I can understand why they don't like it. It doesn't have any presence. If NASCAR can throw a plastic facsimile street car panel over their frames, the least they could do for these military guys is throw some Hummer looking shape to it and add a gun mount or two. Hire some Hollywood sci-fi/action-movie effects guys to come up with a kick-ass design.
Isn't Bretton Woods down the toilet? Aren't we off the gold standard since Nixon needed to print money to wage the Vietnam war?
Aren't these "federal assets" that could be sold off to make some much-needed paper money?
Or are the playas in charge actually secretly aware that the greenback is not worth a continental and hoarding in anticipation of the crack-up boom?
"(which is a large Army base as well as housing just over 5,000 tons of federal gold)"
Should say "reportedly housing." No one from the outside has seen any of it in decades. Like the Federal Reserve's books.
There is some question as to how JP Morgan is going to come up with Chavez's $10.6B in gold "held" in its vaults.
Full faith and credit.
They have had an Armored unit at Fort Knox, including Abraham Tanks , but the unit with all the Armored vehicles are be transferred to Fort Benning.
The shift is well under way and there will soon be no Tanks at Fort Knox.
The criminals / terrorists will be met with stiff resistance from the solar powered golf buggies, weather permitting.
"Fort Knox (which is a large Army base as well as housing just over 5,000 tons of federal gold).."
Can we get a citation on this?
It appears that there may be far less or even no gold at all in Fort Knox. No audit has been carried out there since 1930 as the Federal Bank has refused all such inspections including a personal attempt by Pres. Nixon himself.
The same is true of the Federal Reserve.
It is also worth understanding at this point that the "Federal Bank" and "Federal Reserve" are not branches of the US Treasury or even subject to governmental oversight; they are in fact private corporations with about as much to do with government as "Federal Express" is, the only difference being that the Reserve can print their own money.
Furthermore, it's been a long, long time since money represented any form of material wealth and instead represents debt. When I last looked, 1 in 7 dollars represented debt rather than product or wealth (ie, for every dollar in circulation there are $7 that are held "virtually" as debts) and that ratio was rapidly growing...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5989271.ece
http://www.eutimes.net/2011/05/russia-says-imf-chief-jailed-for-discovering-all-us-gold-is-gone/