Some months back I reported on the fact that the UAE had gone to the trouble and expense of building its own world class gold bullion vault. Upon completion of the storage facility, the UAE pulled all of its physical gold from London based storage facilities. In the following article we find that Hong Kong has followed their lead and is now demanding their gold from London as well:
As the article says, confidence appears to be waning still.
Whoever is the last to ask for their gold will find out the hard way that it no longer exists IMO. As usual, institutions will fare OK and it will be private citizens who are the last to know and the slowest to react. All the signs are there. Bottom line is that you don’t really own any gold if someone else is holding it for you. Instead, you hold a promise to be paid your gold upon demand. If they don't have it anymore then you aren't getting it. In a crisis possession is 9/10ths of the law.
