"Ron Paul asks the Bernanke if he thought gold was money. Bernanke almost swallows his tongue, stares blankly for a few seconds and then says, “no.”
Paul then asks why banks hold gold on their balance sheet? Why not diamonds? Bernanke says, “tradition, I suppose.”
So let me get this straight, banks hold billions of dollars of an asset that pays no interest or dividends on their balance sheet for reasons of "tradition". nothing to do with anything else, just tradition. uh, yea. That must be it."