Personally, I don't think the central banks have but a small fraction of the 30,000 tons they claim. Over the last forty years, the pressure to release gold into the market, to support the dollar and control the gold price in the face of suppressed interest rates was too great to resist. In the 1990s, the financial "wizards" became intoxicated with their success in creating economic growth with low inflation, low interest rates and a strong dollar. They forgot that they were creating a virtual economy, a temporary prosperity financed by leased gold. They began to believe their own lie, that a paper certificate for gold was as good as gold. The leasing continued and their vaults emptied of bullion and filled with gold certificates. The United States was the worst offender of gold, leasing all of it's bullion until 2001 when the supply was exhausted. A large percentage of the bullion of Germany and other nations remains in the custody of the United States at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. It is a fair assertion that this gold has also been compromised, portions leased and gone forever, the rest hypothecated many times over.

In 2010, central banks became net buyers of gold bullion, after gold has risen in price over 600% above the 2001 lows. This is the tell: the banks have panicked and lost faith in the paper dollar monetary order. They are desperately trying to reaccumulate gold so as to form a sufficient reserve foundation for the new order to come when the dollar finally collapses. In 2010, they purchased about 500 tons, a paltry amount of gold in the grand scheme of things. I believe they would have purchased far more but for the tightness in the gold supply against which larger demand would have caused unacceptable price appreciation in gold. That gold production peaked in 2001 has made their task all the more daunting. To be sure, the gold purchases will continue quietly while the left hand of the bankers continues to suppress the paper price of gold. Accumulation of physical gold by the public is the central bankers' worst nightmare. Because the day after the dollar dies, if the public is still holding the bulk of the world's gold, then the people will dictate the terms of the new monetary order, not the central bankers.