What goes up but won’t come raining down? The price of gold, and gold ingots

New York

No helicopters are flying in the cold clear skies above Liberty Street, home of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, from which I assume that monetary policy is in neutral. If money were running short, Ben Bernanke, successor-designate to Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Fed, would be prepared to contemplate an air-supply of dollar bills, dropping as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. An air-drop of gold ingots would, by contrast, constitute a health hazard, which is one reason why Mr Bernanke has no plans for it. Another is that he cannot produce the ingots for the asking. For that purpose, nothing compares with the printing press which, as he has pointed out, can produce extra dollars to order. It has already supplied most of the $2 trillion held in reserve by China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and is still able to meet the demand which has been stoked up by the Fed’s repeated increases in interest rates.