Where Did All the Gold Go?

In the first and second versions of Loose Change Dylan absurdly claims that $167 billion of gold was stolen from the World Trade Centers. After finding out that he flunked economics in high school, this is starting to make more sense. In "Loose Change: We still can't get the facts straight" this is down to a measly $1 billion. His facts and logic, however, are still wrong, they just go from absurdly wrong to a mere stupidly wrong.

It is actually kind of interesting to compare the parts side by side, to see how his little brain works.

From LC2:

One of the world's largest gold depositories was stored underneath the World Trade Center. In 1993 the value of the gold was estimated at one billion dollars, rumored to be owned by Kuwaiti interests. When the World Trade Center was destroyed, the amount of gold "far exceeded the 1993 levels. The gold was finally recovered in its entirety in late 2001. Or was it?

And now from LC 2 Service Pack 1:

CNS news reported on September 12th 2001, that at the time of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 the complex was storing at least $1 billion worth of Kuwaiti gold underneath World Trade Center 4. However, the amount that was stored on September 11th, 2001 has never been publicly disclosed. Only that it far exceeds the 1993 levels.

Well at least they report a source this time, you can read the CNS news story here. It is rather ironic to see all these avowed Bush hating liberals cite far right news sources, when it fits them.

In any case, in V2.0 the gold is "recovered in it entirety", now it is not. I guess it was derecovered.

Do-over Dylan continues, in V2.0:

On November 1st, 2001, the Timesonline reported that a large amount of gold was discovered in the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Mayor Rudolph Guiliani announced that more than $230 million dollars was recovered from Ground Zero. However, the Comex metals trading division was storing gold bars for the Bank of Nova Scotia, Chase Manhattan Bank, The Bank of New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai Banking, totaling $950 million dollars. And that's just one company. Rumor has it that over $160 billion dollars in gold were stored in the World Trade Center.

At least in V 2.1 he drops the silly $160 billion rumor at the end. The rest of the paragraph is unchanged though, and just as unsupported as it was originally. There is no source given for this, and there is absolutely no reason to believe there was any gold missing. I mean, think about, don't you think the banks would notice?

Dylan continues:

So where did all the gold go? Remember the gold that was found in November, 2001? Reuters reported, that it was discovered in the back of a 10 wheel truck, along with several cars in a delivery tunnel underneath World Trade Center 5. No bodies were recovered.

He then goes on to tell an elaborate story of thieves trying to escape with the gold in this truck. This lie is repeated verbatim in the "recut" version. The only problem is, this isn't what the Reuters story said, it never was, and it isn't today. Here is the actual text from the story, reprinted on a conspiracy website, but I looked it up on Lexis-Nexis and this is correct.

Officials finally reached the trove Tuesday after removing a 10-wheel truck and several cars that had been crushed by the debris. No bodies were recovered. More than 100 armed officers watched the workers. The contents of the vaults had to be removed because authorities need to demolish the building.

The gold was not in the back of the truck, the truck and the cars had to be removed in order for them to get to the vault. And why wouldn't there be a truck and cars there? It is a delivery tunnel. Once again, a little creative editing by the truthers.

Well, there is always Loose Change: Version 2 Service Pack 2