"Who owns the
gold in the world? Central banks? Individuals? Powerful families?"
The most reliable reports of gold ownership place about 29,000 tons in the hands of governments, central banks and the IMF, led by the U.S., Germany, England, IMF, France, Italy and Switzerland.
The rest of the above ground inventory of an estimated 125,000 tons is owned by private individual and groups throughout the world.
As to powerful families (i.e. Rothschild), they have long traded the majority of their physical gold holdings for earning assets given the worldwide irredeemable currency system. The times when the Rothschild' would keep large amounts of gold to lend to sovereign governments for interest earnings payed to them in gold ended in 1971.
