I disagree with your disagreement 
The abandonment of the gold standard was redemption issue -- i.e. excessive printing -- not a centralization problem. French moving their gold back was just an failed attempt on gold suppression scheme: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Gold_Pool
Leaving gold with Fed has always been more of a political gesture than logistic issue, even today much of the Germany and Chinese gold are still left with NY Fed, you think because it's too heavy?
The abandonment of the gold standard was redemption issue -- i.e. excessive printing -- not a centralization problem. French moving their gold back was just an failed attempt on gold suppression scheme: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Gold_Pool Leaving gold with Fed has always been more of a political gesture than logistic issue, even today much of the Germany and Chinese gold are still left with NY Fed, you think because it's too heavy?
The big gold cube might fall to the center of the earth because it's so heavy. Like the missing pyramids. You don't know about them? That's 'cause they sunk!
I still don't understand why you need to move gold around on a daily basis -- gold/silver certificates work just fine, as long as there's convertibility.
Yup. The dollar is a claim on the nation's accumulated wealth, held mainly in the form of gold. Without convertibility, you may as well have bought shares of a company that the company refuses to recognize.
I didn't say I was an owner of a significant chunk of the global network infrastructure. It's more than I have some sense of the layout coupled with some intuition about these sorts of things complements of my vocation.
