Australia's " Fort Knox " !

We all know about the Reserve Bank of Australia because it meets on the first Tuesday of every month and in its wisdom it sets the interest rate we will be paying on our home mortgages.   It is a mysterious entity that is often quoted by the Federal government as the source of information whenever the state of the economy is questioned.

One of the important things that this RBA controls is the money supply.  It is the RBA that designs and prints the banknotes we use in everyday trading and makes sure that nice, clean new notes are flowing into circulation and old notes showing the signs of wear and tear are withdrawn  and eventually destroyed under close supervision.  Australian banknotes are constantly reviewed and the RBA design people are constantly looking for added security to reduced the risk of counterfeiting.

Keeping the money supply flowing is an important function and the RBA needs to keep a supply of new notes handy in case we encounter an emergency, and obviously that presents a big security risk.  This is the country's wealth we are talking about and in a distant age it was measured in gold bars. Many people remember the era just after the end of the second world war when America was the richest nation on the planet.   They had a legendary fortress out in the desert that was called " Fort Knox " and it housed their gold reserves.   It is still there, but it has less gold in these days of a retreating world economy.

Our Reserve Bank is completing the building of an Australian version of Fort Knox to safeguard the stock of banknotes we keep on hand - and the value of the paper money that will reside within its blast proof walls will run to more than $ 73 billion.   At any time there is about 1.5 billion banknotes in circulation within the community.

Now there is a doubt about the integrity of the builder who constructed our new Fort Knox.  There are worrying rumours that the workforce have wages owing and many subcontractors working on the site - and on another contract to blast proof the Federal parliament in Canberra - are seriously out of pocket for work done.

What is even more alarming is a rumour that the company head negotiated a $70,000 cash loan from Russian loan sharks at an interest rate of seventy two percent and has an interest in running a company called " Boober " which is an Uber style operation providing " escorts " on call.  It is possible the firm now owes 400 creditors $ 21 million and there are worries about the security of this important money vault.

The American government long claimed that its gold at Fort Knox was safe because the fort was impregnable.  It was guarded by the American army with the latest military equipment installed in a wide radius. In fact Fort Knox was the home base for several of America's crack serving regiments.

We need to be certain that this Australian money cube has similar defences.  That is a tempting stash of money and it will certainly gain the attention of countries with ill will towards Australia.