Russia could disclose much larger levels of gold in reserves than the 2,000-2,300 tons officially held by the central bank because of sovereign wealth funds that intelligence suggests hold something like 10,000 tons between the two principal funds.

Macleod rejects Keynesian economics, calling it 'rubbish'; he argues that export-import balances are a side issue and the real problem is when governments tax savings, discourage savings, or suppress interest rates to encourage consumption, which destroys the economy.

The Netherlands was particularly fortunate to retrieve approximately 1,000 tons of gold from the New York Fed, likely as a result of pressure from the Bundesbank's experience with retrieval delays.

If the yuan-gold price (once fixed) will go through the roof due to dollar collapse consequences, fixing it while there is still speculative trading would create a financial crisis in the Shanghai futures exchange; therefore, banks have been told not to open new futures positions.

The SIP system (China's international payments system) was set up as an alternative to SWIFT; SWIFT has been effectively shut down to Russia and weaponized against them as a tool of dollar hegemony; the majority of countries now have SIP accounts, but SIP is not yet a rival to the dollar for trade settlements.

China has shuttered leverage gold and silver trading on domestic markets to prevent speculation, while simultaneously encouraging gold accumulation accounts; this targeted approach stops speculative futures positions while encouraging stable investment.

In 1948, the United States had over 20,000 tons of gold, representing approximately 60% of above-ground global gold stocks; by 1971 when the Bretton Woods agreement was suspended, this had declined to around 9,000-10,000 tons.

~76% (or 75%) of China's silver does not come from mining but from refining copper, zinc, lead, and gold as byproducts; only ~25% comes from primary silver mining.

If the London physical market no longer has enough depth to offset COMEX short positions that banks maintain, the markets will collapse when this hedge breaks.

Sergey Glazev wrote an article 3-4 years ago in a Moscow business magazine about how it would be easy to put the ruble on a gold standard, which Macleod interprets as a signal that Russia's highest circles were thinking about this as a real option.

Russia's gold mining has accelerated substantially such that Russia probably now rivals China as a gold miner.

The LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) could potentially be pressured by Americans through British authorities to disclose the identities of all vault owners, allowing governments to target individuals for confiscation of precious metals.