Word: goldings
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...dozens of nations, from Austria and Italy to Sweden and Ireland, ordinary citizens rushed out to buy gold coins to stuff socks and mattresses, cleaning out numismatic stocks virtually overnight. In London, a $20 U.S. gold piece sold for $56, a ? 1 British sovereign for $10.20. In Geneva, the Swiss lined up at tellers' windows to convert their savings to gold bars. There was even a run in Hong Kong on gold jewelry. All told, between $1 billion and $2.5 billion in gold may have changed hands within ten days in London-as much as 10% of the total...
...some merely prudent-had become convinced that the U.S. and its partners could not much longer maintain the $35 price. With a balance of payments deficit of $3.6 billion last year and a war in Viet Nam that is costing some $30 billion annually, the U.S. has seen its gold reserves shrink by 50% from a postwar peak of $24.6 billion. Now, believed the speculators, the U.S. was nearing the end of its gold tether. If the U.S. could no longer sell gold to all takers at $35 an ounce and the price were allowed to rise to meet...
...including some Communist Eastern European countries, had undoubtedly joined in to protect themselves. More in sorrow than in greed, European corporations moved into the buying to hedge their foreign-currency holdings. So did some wealthy Americans with numbered Swiss accounts, although it is illegal for U.S. citizens to own gold bullion...
...understood the situation best, the spectacle was appalling. "The world is lost," said London Economist John Vaizey. "A rise in the price of gold is inevitable now. It's like a grand opera of which the overture is over, and we're in the first act of a world depression." A usually unemotional Swiss banker warned that "in participating in gold speculation, capitalists are doing their best to destroy the capitalist system. If they win the battle in London, the probability is that the whole present international monetary system will come crashing down." French Economist Jacques Rueff...
...Tier Price. Finally, the pressure grew so great that the U.S. refused to continue to feed gold to satisfy speculators' greed. In a telephoned message to British Chancellor of the Exchequer Roy Jenkins, the U.S. asked Britain to close the London gold market and shut off the flow from the Gold Pool. Prime Minister Harold Wilson hurried to Buckingham Palace for a midnight meeting with Queen Elizabeth, who declared a bank holiday in foreign-exchange trading. That shut off the Gold Pool's dealing, and money markets from Singapore to Lusaka followed suit. The Paris market alone stayed...