And no, govts shouldn’t be selling assets on the quiet. Totally wrong. they should be transparent.

I also believe they sold it over a period of time, not that the gold price was fluctuating hugely, but if I remember, he announced it at about $250 and sold at average $275 having been told not to sell it all at once.

And why would you loan it out for a return when you’re running low inflation policies which means it would likely lose value? Now would be a good time to do that, but again is that the role of the govt ‘reserves’? No.

I’ve read that 6 years forwards from the sales the price increase of gold was a 4.5% compounded. So it’s certain the diversified bonds did just aswell at least.

The gold price has followed the american’s sudden expansion of debt in the last decade, when the govt debt ceiling has been raised so many times people have lost count.

In short Bush added $6trillion to US debt in boom years which allowed/caused our problems.

Now investigating that and it’s relationship with the banks is what is really interesting.

… but couldn’t tell you straight up.
The audience for a textbook is not the student, but the instructor (or departmnet head, etc), who choses whether it becomes the standard text, whether it is mandatory, or whether it is ignored altogether. It is possible that Mankiw ‘dumbed down’ his text in order to impress that audience – after all, he should know how well-recieved a crummy book would be among academic economists. On the other hand, maybe the publisher was acting rationally in attracting a capable author and the author was acting rationally in accepting a nice cheque in anticipation of writng a good textbook (and establishing his bona fides for his next textbook). About the tutor I am not so sure, although striking a pose may be rational behaviour, especially when the penalties are low