Here is a treat sent to me by one of your Café members. Live From The Federal Reserve Bank:

The Dec. 22, 1992 FOMC Meeting:

CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. Did I hear you correctly when you said
that the gold exports in October appear to have come from the coffers
of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York? Has anyone looked lately?

MR. TRUMAN. Well, I didn't want to tell too many secrets in
this temple!

VICE CHAIRMAN CORRIGAN. Obviously, we knew what happened to
the gold, but I don't think we knew what it did to exports.

MR. TRUMAN. What happens in the Census data is that the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York is treated as a foreign country.
[Laughter] And when a real foreign country takes some of the gold out
of New York and ships it abroad, it counts first as imports and then
as exports. HOWEver, the import side is not picked up in the Census
data. So there you get the export side of it.

MR. LAWARE. Great accounting!

MR. BOEHNE. Great confidence building!

MR. TRUMAN. That's because you haven't been filling out your
import documents!

MR. ANGELL. Let me run this by again. You mean a country
owns gold and has it stored in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
and if they ship it out, that's an export?


MR. TRUMAN. And in the balance of payments accounts it also
counts as an import, so it washes out.

CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. The Federal Reserve Bank's basement is a
foreign country. When they move it out of the basement into the
United States, it's an import. Then, when they ship it out again,
it's an export.

MR. ANGELL. That makes sense!

MR. TRUMAN. And sometimes when they sell the gold. it might be sold into the United States, so it
should count as an import. It
doesn't necessarily always show up as an export.

MR. BOEHNE. That really clarifies it!

MR. KELLEY. Does it have to get out of your vault at all in
order to be considered an import and an export?

VICE CHAIRMAN CORRIGAN. Well, I'm not even going to try to
answer that. In this particular case I know what happened, so I think
the description you have is correct.

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