Perth Mint Gold sales triple

Bloomberg.com: U.S.: "U.S. investors are increasing their holdings of gold at the Perth Mint in Western Australia at an unprecedented pace as they seek to preserve the value of assets.

“We’re seeing a continuing, but heavy bias toward investors out of the U.S.” in the past three months, said Nigel Moffatt, 59, treasurer and manager of the mint’s depository. The value of gold held by all investors at the Mint has doubled to “comfortably over $2 billion” in the past year, with 80 percent from overseas, he said in an interview in Perth.

Gold jumped to a sixth-month high yesterday on soaring demand as investor confidence in financial assets erodes and central banks spend trillions of dollars to prop up the banking system. The U.S. Treasury will likely borrow a record $2.5 trillion this fiscal year ending Sept. 30, almost triple the $892 billion in notes and bonds sold in fiscal 2008, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

“The world at large does seem to understand innately that governments are bankrupting themselves and destroying paper currency,” said investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Singapore- based Rogers Holdings"