When they talk about the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of international monetary settlements, they always remember the President of France, General de Gaulle. It was he who is believed to have dealt the most crushing blow to the BVS - as it is called. Charles de Gaulle was elected president of France in 1958, and in 1965 he was re-elected with the broadest powers, which no president of the country had before him. De Gaulle set the task of ensuring the economic recovery and military power of France and, on this basis, recreating the greatness of his power. Was released under him new franc worth 100 old. The franc, for the first time in many years, became a hard currency.

From 1949 to 1965, France's gold reserves increased from 500 kilograms to 4,200 tons, and France took third place in the world among the “gold powers” ​​- excluding the USSR, information about whose gold reserves were classified.
In 1960, France successfully tested an atomic bomb in the Pacific Ocean and three years later refused to participate in NATO's joint nuclear forces.
In January 1963, de Gaulle rejected the “multilateral nuclear force” created by the Pentagon, and then withdrew the French Atlantic fleet from NATO command.
However, the Americans had no idea that these were just flowers. The most serious conflict between de Gaulle and the United States and England in post-war history was brewing.

Neither Franklin Delano Roosevelt nor Winston Churchill disliked de Gaulle, to put it mildly.
Roosevelt’s dislike of the “arrogant Frenchman,” whom he called a “hidden fascist” and “a quarrelsome individual who imagines himself the savior of France,” was fully shared by Churchill.
Lamenting that “the unbearable rudeness and impudence in this man’s behavior are complemented by active Anglophobia,” Churchill, as evidenced by published archival documents, actively tried to remove de Gaulle from political life France.

But the time has come for Paris to take revenge.
De Gaulle opposes England's admission to the Common Market.
And on February 4, 1960, he announced that his country would henceforth switch to real gold in international payments. De Gaulle’s attitude towards the dollar as a “green candy wrapper” was formed under the impression of an anecdote told to him long ago by the Minister of Finance in the Clemenceau government. This is its meaning. A painting by Raphael is being sold at auction. The Arab offers oil, the Russian offers gold, the American lays out a wad of banknotes and buys Raphael for ten thousand dollars. As a result, he gets the canvas for exactly three dollars, because the cost of paper for a hundred-dollar bill is three cents.
Having realized what the “trick” was, de Gaulle began to prepare the de-dollarization of France, which he called his “economic Austerlitz.”

The President of France declares that he considers it necessary that international exchange should be established on the indisputable basis of the gold standard. And he explains his position: “Gold does not change its nature: it can be in bars, bars, coins; it has no nationality, it has long been accepted by the whole world as an unchangeable value. There is no doubt that even today the value of any currency is determined on the basis of direct or indirect, real or perceived connections with gold.”
After which de Gaulle demanded from the United States - in accordance with the BVS - “living gold”.
In 1965, at a meeting with US President Lyndon Johnson, he announced that he intended to exchange 1.5 billion paper dollars for gold at the official rate: $35 per ounce. Johnson was informed that a French ship loaded with “green candy wrappers” was in the New York port, and a French plane with the same “baggage” had landed at the airport.

Johnson promised the French president serious problems.
De Gaulle responded by announcing the evacuation of NATO headquarters, 29 NATO and US military bases from French territory and the withdrawal of 35 thousand alliance troops. Ultimately, this was done, but for now, de Gaulle significantly lightened the famous Fort Knox in two years: by more than 3 thousand tons of gold.
The President of France created a most dangerous precedent for the United States; other countries also decided to exchange their “greenbacks” for gold.

Following France, Germany presented dollars for exchange.
Only the Germans turned out to be more cunning than the straightforward general. In front of the White House, Federal Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, a professor of economics and a committed monetarist, pointedly condemned the French for “treachery.” And under his breath, he collected dollars from the treasury of the Bundesrepublic and placed them in front of Uncle Sam: “We are allies, aren’t we? Exchange it if you promised!” Moreover, the amount was several times more than one and a half billion French dollars.
The Americans were amazed by such impudence, but were forced to exchange “green” for gold.

And then the central banks of other countries reached out to real values: Canada, Japan... The then reports about the state of the US gold reserves were similar to front-line reports about losses suffered in battles. In March 1968, Americans limited the free exchange of dollars for gold for the first time. By the end of July 1971, America's gold reserves had dropped to an extremely low level, according to US authorities - less than $10 billion.
And then something happened that went down in history as the “Nixon shock.” On August 15, 1971, US President Richard Nixon, speaking on television, announced the complete abolition of the gold backing of the dollar. The IMF could only report that since January 1978, the Bretton Woods agreements have been ordered to live for a long time.

And Charles de Gaulle did not last long in power after his “currency Austerlitz”.
In 1968, massive student unrest swept France, Paris was blocked off with barricades, and posters “05/13/58 - 05/13/68, it’s time to leave, Charles” hung on the walls.
On April 28, 1969, ahead of schedule, de Gaulle voluntarily left his post.

V. Bolshakov

STORIES

How Charles de Gaulle brought the dollar down to earth

In July 1944, one of the key events of the 20th century took place.

At the initiative of the highest financial circles of the United States, in the American resort town of Bretton Woods, a system of international currency settlements (Bretton Woods system) was created, based on the priority of the American dollar, which replaced the financial system based on the gold standard. Then 44 countries agreed that when trading with each other they would pay in dollars. To do this, each country party to the agreement must convert its currency into dollars at an established fixed rate, and the dollars, in turn, will be backed by gold. With the help of this magnificent trick, American bankers were going to take over the entire world currency system. And they almost succeeded.

Almost, because Charles de Gaulle spoiled all the raspberries for them. But first things first...

In April 1943, while Soviet Union bore the brunt of the war and millions of Soviet people died on its fronts, the Americans began to develop a scheme for a new global monetary system that would allow them to individually control the world currency market, simply put, to rule the whole world.

Who benefited from the war?

The economic aspect of the global carnage, on the one hand, boiled down to the flow of gold flowing through the Lend-Lease programs into American bins. For the supply of weapons, cars, raw materials, food to the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain and other partners in the anti-Hitler coalition, America had to pay in gold, since during the war ordinary banknotes were worth practically nothing.

On the other hand, the United States (and, to be more precise, the Federal Reserve System, the Bank of England and the financial and industrial oligarchs associated with them) sponsored Hitler. And they financed Germany even during the war (for example, the New York bank Union Banking Corporation (UBC) became " main organization on Nazi money laundering"). Americans do not like to remember this fact and try in every possible way to hide it, because it explains many “dark spots” in the history of the Second World War, which do not bring honor to the United States, which positions itself as the leader among the countries that won Nazism.

During World War II, the gold reserves of many countries were depleted. Great Britain spent almost all of its gold reserves on the fight against Germany, the USSR lost a lot of gold, France and Germany lost almost all of their gold. But the precious metal did not evaporate, it simply migrated from the basements of European banks to American ones as payment for fulfilling military orders. (Indestructibility is one of the most important properties of gold, making it the most reliable type of money, in contrast to paper bills and non-cash numbers on bank servers.)

America has made very good money on both warring sides' weapons and military supplies. Back in 1938, Washington's gold reserves were 13,000 tons. In 1945 - 17,700 tons. By 1949, American gold reserves stored at Fort Knox reached a record of 21,800 tons. This is no less than 70 percent of all world gold reserves known at that time.

Here is the answer to the question of who benefited from the war.

Gold and dollar are twin brothers

The Anglo-American financial oligarchy, which got rich from the war, decided to create a system of international currency payments based on the US dollar. It was extremely profitable investment its accumulated gold capital.

At the Bretton Woods conference, countries agreed and fixed the exchange rates of their currencies, but not directly, but using the gold dollar as a unit of measurement. After all, you need to somehow “weigh” different currencies in relation to each other. Now these “scales” will be dollars – the key world currency.

The logic that the Americans promoted at this conference was seemingly impeccable. Gold is a classic monetary standard. And since the main reserves of gold and, moreover, the most powerful industry are now concentrated in the United States, only they will be able to ensure the gold content of their currency. This meant that the post-war economy needed to be built on the basis of the dollar, which would be the only currency with a gold content (the key currency), and therefore stable as a rock, against which inflation and global financial and economic crises would be shattered. Other currencies do not have a gold content, so they will have a dollar content, which will give them stability.

The dollar was equated to gold and the free possibility of exchanging dollars for gold was announced at any time.

The dollar to gold exchange rate was firmly fixed at $35 per troy ounce (31.1 grams), or $1.1 per gram of pure metal. However, many participants in the agreement had fair doubts whether the United States would be able to maintain such a course, because the gold reserves at Fort Knox may not be enough to provide all the dollars that began to be intensively printed after Bretton Woods.

Bretton Woods problem

The main problem of the Bretton Woods system was clearly formulated in Triffin's dilemma (paradox):

On the one hand, the issue of the key currency must correspond to the gold reserves of the issuing country. Excessive issuance not backed by gold reserves could undermine the convertibility of a key currency into gold, causing a crisis of confidence in it. But, on the other hand, the key currency must be issued in quantities sufficient to ensure an increase in the international money supply to service the growing number of international transactions. Therefore, its issue must occur, regardless of the size of the limited gold reserves of the issuing country.

Understanding this problem, Washington began to limit the exchange of dollars for gold to all possible ways. Such an exchange could only be carried out at the highest level.

Dollar yoke

As a result of the Bretton Woods Conference, the gold dollar became the main currency of the world, and all other currencies became secondary. Each country has pledged to ensure that all of its national currency is exchanged for dollars, because All global payments are now made through dollars. The Americans kindly agreed to print these dollars.

As a result of the fact that instead of neutral gold, the currency of one of the countries became the measure of all the wealth of the world, this country received a huge advantage over other states: unlike them, America does not need to earn dollars, it is enough to print this “new gold” in the desired quantities and, thus, living large at the expense of others. This was the magnificent trick of the American bankers - to impose the dollar yoke on the whole world, which they preferred not to talk about out loud.

The Americans assured out loud that the Bretton Woods system would stabilize world financial relations and even eliminate global financial and economic crises. However, many understood that, having a printing press in its hands, America would strive to print more and more unbacked dollars, that is, slowly but surely devaluing the dollar, American bankers would rob the whole world. Which, in general, is what happened.

Law of the jungle

The dollar was soldered to gold in order to give it the status of an absolute, unshakable measure (system of reference) for all other currencies and, in general, for any universal values. However, based on the Theory of Relativity, an absolute reference system (the motionless ether) does not exist, because all reference systems are relative (equal). Currency rates, like inertial reference systems, constantly move relative to each other, changing speed and direction - they either rise or fall under the influence of many reasons. Therefore, nothing prevented the participants of the Bretton Woods agreement from agreeing that all currencies would be recognized as equal world money and would be quoted against each other along with gold (silver, aluminum, iron, oil, gas, coal, manure and any other world values) . It would be democratic.

But democracy does not reign in nature, but the law of the jungle or the preemptive right of the strong - whoever is stronger has more rights. Both in the animal world and in human society. Therefore, the Americans, as the stronger ones (since they had the largest capital), imposed the predominant right of the dollar in international payments on all other participants in the agreement, and all the others, as the weaker ones, were forced to accept their terms. And the point here is not that Americans are bad. All people are the same. There is simply such a law - the strong dictate conditions to the weak, and not vice versa. Therefore, if they were the American financial tycoons, others would behave in exactly the same way.

At first Stalin was indignant...

The Soviet Union did not take part in the Bretton Woods agreement, and therefore the ruble was not considered convertible: no one agreed on its exchange rate in relation to the dollar. Therefore, the USSR paid for all purchases on the world market in gold, including for military supplies under Lend-Lease, for which it was heavily in debt. And therefore, the Soviet Union, which emerged victorious from the war and suffered the heaviest losses, rebelled against the emerging status quo. Again, by the right of the strong.

In 1952, an international economic meeting was held in Moscow, at which the USSR proposed creating a free trade zone. Stalin put forward the idea " common market”, precisely the one that was later implemented in Europe without the USSR. The main currency supporting international trade was to be the Soviet ruble, which was to be backed by gold mined in Magadan. This system was going to include all the countries of Eastern Europe (GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia), China, Iran, Ethiopia, Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Ireland and Iceland.

Unlike Bretton Woods, this system promised to be more stable and work longer, because there is obviously much more gold in Siberia than in Fort Knox, and if necessary, Stalin will extract it in the required quantity. Therefore, Washington became seriously worried that their system might collapse along with the dollar. And only after Stalin's death were the Americans able to relax.

... and then de Gaulle

Before the United States had time to catch its breath, having successfully avoided a major collapse, the President of France began to continue Stalin’s work. In 1965, Charles de Gaulle was re-elected to a second term and enjoyed enormous support from the French. He set his main task to restore the former greatness of his country. The president's ambitions were as strong as the people's confidence in his policies. By boosting the economy, the general achieved unprecedented growth in the country's GDP. For the first time after many years, France acquired a hard currency.

De Gaulle, who fought against fascism, did not like America and everything American, because he saw how the United States was getting rich in a war that brought suffering to millions of people. And now they have started to rob the whole world, uncontrollably printing dollars.

The general was impressed by an anecdote that Joseph Caillot, a former finance minister in one of the cabinets of Georges Clemenceau, told him. A painting by Raphael is being sold at the Drouot auction in Paris. The Arab offers oil for it, the Russian offers gold, and the American lays out a wad of money - 10 thousand dollars - and buys Raphael. The point of the joke is that, in fact, an American gets a masterpiece for next to nothing - for only three dollars - that’s exactly how much the paper on which the banknotes are printed costs (3 cents for a hundred-dollar bill).

De Gaulle considered the new dollar yoke to be the biggest fraud, which allowed producers of “green candy wrappers” to easily buy masterpieces, real estate, enterprises, islands, Natural resources and any other real value that everyone else must work hard to acquire.

Gold pool

In addition, from a secret report by famous economists Robert Triffin and Jacques Rueff, prepared in 1959, the general also knew that France’s forced participation in the so-called Golden Pool was ruining it. This international structure, created under the auspices of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from the central banks of seven Western European countries, including France, in order to achieve stabilization of the market price of gold, acted through the Bank of England. She not only maintained world gold prices at $35 per ounce in the interests of Washington, but also traded gold, reporting every month to the American financial authorities on the work done. If it was necessary to increase the volume of metal sold, the pool participants returned gold from their reserves to the Americans. If the pool bought more gold than it sold, the difference was divided in the ratio: half of the metal went to the Americans, half to everyone else. The French got only 9 percent. Experts reported to de Gaulle that the damage caused to Europeans by the Gold Pool exceeded $3 billion..

All this crafty essence of American bankers and the fleecing of the whole world that they started outraged de Gaulle’s sense of justice. Naturally, the general could not come to terms with the hegemony of the dollar, legally formalized at the Bretton Woods conference. He was also not satisfied with the IMF charter, tailored according to American patterns. Therefore, he decided to oppose the dollar yoke and give America an “economic Austerlitz” (like Napoleon, who brilliantly won the Battle of Austerlitz).

Economic Austerlitz

After France's successful test of the atomic bomb, de Gaulle refused to create a multilateral nuclear force under the command of the Pentagon and withdrew the French Atlantic Fleet from NATO command.

The Americans considered de Gaulle's policy to be the eccentricities of an old man out of his mind, but they had no idea what kind of pig the French president was going to play on them.

On February 4, 1965, at his traditional briefing at the Elysee Palace, the President of the French Republic stated that he considered it necessary to conduct international exchange on the basis of the gold standard, and not the dollar. He explained his position as follows: “Gold does not change its nature: it can be in bars, bars, coins; it has no nationality, it has long been accepted by the whole world as an unchangeable value. There is no doubt that even today the value of any currency is determined on the basis of direct or indirect, real or perceived connections with gold.” This was a declaration of war on the dollar.

In accordance with the Bretton Woods agreement, de Gaulle officially invited his American colleague Lyndon Johnson to exchange one and a half billion dollars from French state reserves for gold: “Is the American currency really convertible until it is required to be convertible?”

Soon after, the first French steamship loaded with dollar bills arrived at an American port, and then a second. The United States was forced to exchange its money for gold at a rate of 35 dollars per ounce. The US gold reserves lost 1,650 tons. Washington said that such an action by Paris could be regarded by the States as unfriendly - with all the ensuing consequences. “Politics is too serious a matter to be trusted to politicians,” the general retorted and removed NATO headquarters and 29 military bases from French territory.

The example turned out to be contagious: following France, other countries began to exchange their dollars for gold. First, the zealous Germans. Moreover, their amount was several times more than one and a half billion French dollars. Then the central banks of other countries decided to join the real values: Canada, Japan... At that time, reports about the state of the US gold reserves were similar to front-line reports about losses suffered in battles.

The gold reserves at Fort Knox were melting before our eyes, so in March 1968, Americans limited the exchange of dollars for gold for the first time. In July 1971, America's gold reserves dropped to an extremely low, according to US authorities, psychological level - less than $10 billion. Since the dollar was in danger of collapse, Washington admitted itself unable to meet the demands of Bretton Woods. And then something happened that went down in history as the “Nixon shock.” On August 15, 1971, US President Richard Nixon, speaking on television, announced the complete abolition of the gold backing of the dollar. The IMF could only report that the Bretton Woods system was about to live for a long time.

Instead, in 1976-1978, the Jamaican currency system arose, which is still in effect today. Despite the fact that the dollar is no longer backed by gold, by inertia it continues to remain the key currency in international transactions, mainly due to the military power of the United States and the influence of the NATO military bloc. The dollar exchange rate has become floating - changing under the influence of many factors, so controlling it has become problematic. And after the emergence of the euro, the dollar lost part of its value relative to a basket of freely convertible currencies and lost its claim to be the main and unshakable world currency.

The gold standard, which de Gaulle wanted to return to replace the hegemony of the dollar, did not take hold. Gold has been demoted - from a monetary standard it has turned into one of the goods and is now quoted on the market along with other currencies, oil and other valuables, also having a floating rate. And this is correct, because in nature there are no absolute standards (reference frames of reference). Likewise, all values ​​are relative, for everything is known in comparison.

Color revolution in France

After his "Austerlitz" de Gaulle was unable to stay in power. Mass protests by students began. In 1968, barricades appeared on the streets of Paris, and on the walls there were inscriptions: “It’s time to leave, Charles.” The general left his post voluntarily, much earlier than expected, because he never clung to power, but only used it for the good of France in response to the love and trust of the people of his country.

It appears that this was one of the first color revolutions organized by the CIA. After this, de Gaulle did not live long and died on November 9, 1970, “from aortic rupture,” as the official medical report stated.

Now many French people remember him as the last national hero, because Charles de Gaulle passionately and selflessly loved France and, defending its interests and independence, knew better than anyone else in the world to say “No!” Nazis and communists, collaborators and allies, as well as financial hegemons imposing their will on the entire world.

Practice has shown that many currencies, such as the pound sterling, the yen, the Swiss franc and some others, turned out to be no worse, or even more stable, than the dollar. And that trust in any currency is ensured not so much by its gold content as by its efficiency state system based on developed economy, reasonable and fair legislation, rational policies and other elements of civilized culture.

The world began to gradually free itself from the dollar yoke and try to conduct international payments in national currencies, without equating them to the dollar, only half a century later, “thanks” to the next dollar world economic crisis and a decline in confidence in the dollar as the world's standard currency.

It all started with a deal that was imposed on the Americans by the ambitious President of France, General Charles de Gaulle.

In the spring of 1965, a French ship anchored in the New York port. Thus began the war. The ship was not a combat ship, but in its holds there were weapons with which Paris hoped to win the financial battle with America. The French brought it to the States dollar bills for 750 million in order to receive “real money” for them - that is, gold. This was only the first tranche presented for payment to the Federal reserve system USA. Then it went on and on. Fort Knox, where the American gold reserves were stored, eventually could not withstand the flow of paper notes, and the gold standard fell. From a universal measure of values, money has turned into a virtual unit of account, not backed by anything other than the good name of one or another head of the central bank, whose signature is on the banknotes. And one person was to blame for all this - Charles Andre Joseph Marie de Gaulle.

Casus belli

The French President, by the way, had no intention of encroaching on the gold standard, which ensured the stability of the global financial system. Quite the opposite - his plans included securing the role of the universal equivalent for gold, and not the dollar.

It all started on February 4, 1965. “It is difficult to imagine that there could be any other standard other than gold,” the President of the French Republic enlightened journalists at his traditional briefing at the Elysee Palace. - Yes, gold does not change its nature: it can be in bars, bars, coins; it has no nationality, it has long been accepted by the whole world as an unchangeable value. Undoubtedly, even today the value of any currency is determined on the basis of direct or indirect, real or perceived connections with gold.”

The general, in his classic manner - slowly and importantly - read from the piece of paper, but from everything it was felt that this text was familiar and close to him down to every comma. De Gaulle looked over his glasses at the full hall of the Elysee Palace and continued in a dry, practiced voice: “In international exchange, the highest law is Golden Rule, here it is appropriate to say, the rule that should be restored is the obligation to ensure the equilibrium of the balance of payments of different currency zones through the actual receipts and expenditures of gold.

As soon as the creator of the Fifth Republic stopped speaking, representatives of the press rushed away from the hall to telephone sets installed nearby. Everyone understood: war had just been officially declared. War on the dollar. De Gaulle proposed not to recognize the post-war redistribution of the financial world in favor of the dollar as the main currency, practically equal to gold, and called for a return in international settlements to the system that existed before the world wars. In other words, return to the classic gold standard, when any currency only has real value when it is literally worth its weight in gold.

“The old man is completely crazy,” US President Lyndon Johnson gasped at the White House when he received a dispatch sent from the embassy in Paris with a report on de Gaulle’s press conference. The Americans, torn between the war in Vietnam and problems in the Caribbean, hoped that the anti-dollar rhetoric of the French leader would remain only words. Didn’t he himself say: “A politician does not take his words on faith to such an extent that he is always surprised when others take him literally”? But this time everything turned out differently. The general, who openly yearned for the imperial past of France, was preparing for the “golden Austerlitz.”

Time itself urged him on. Charles de Gaulle was soon to turn seventy-five. He had no doubt that in December 1965 the French would re-elect him for seven years, for the first time by direct universal suffrage. No French president has ever had such broad powers as he, who adjusted the constitution to his considerable stature. The general would later say: “When I wanted to know what France was thinking, I asked myself.” But this will happen later, already in isolation from power. And now he had to decisively use this unlimited power in order to win France a place in the economic sun.

Golden fever

Joseph Caillot, who was finance minister in one of Georges Clemenceau's cabinets, once told de Gaulle an anecdote. A painting by Raphael was put up for sale at the Drouot auction in Paris. The Arab offered oil to purchase the masterpiece, the Russian offered gold, and the American, raising the price, laid out a pile of hundred-dollar bills for Raphael and purchased the masterpiece for 10 thousand dollars. “What’s the trick here?” - de Gaulle was surprised. “And the fact,” replied the ex-minister, who had gone through both prison and fame during his turbulent life, “is that the American bought Raphael... for three dollars. The cost of the paper on which one hundred dollar bill is printed is only three cents.”

Three cents! Only formally gold... The will of Washington, which wanted to individually control the world currency market, was dictated to all countries during the Second World War. The development of a global monetary system scheme was started by Anglo-American experts in April 1943. World War was in full swing. Meanwhile, the economic side of the global carnage, in essence, boiled down to the flow of gold flowing through the Lend-Lease programs into American bins. For the supply of weapons, cars, metals and food to Great Britain, the USSR and other participants in the anti-Hitler coalition, America had to pay in gold, since during the war ordinary banknotes were worth practically nothing.

Here are some numbers. In 1938, the US gold reserve was 13,000 tons. In 1945 - 17,700 tons. And in 1949 - 21,800 tons. Absolute record! 70 percent of all world gold reserves at that time. Accordingly, it was the dollar that became the equivalent precious metal, only in relation to this currency the gold standard was fully in effect. By 1944, the British and Australians had completely exhausted their gold reserves. Only Stalin continued to send gold mined from the mines of Magadan and Kolyma to the Fort Knox safes. And this continued until the seventies, when the USSR paid Washington its last Lend-Lease debts. I paid, we repeat, exclusively in gold.

De Gaulle, with his “elephant memory” - the general’s own expression - was in possession of this information. From a secret report by famous economists Robert Triffin and Jacques Rueff, prepared in 1959, the general also knew that France’s forced participation in the so-called Golden Pool was ruining it. This international structure, created under the auspices of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from the central banks of seven Western European countries, including France, operated through the Bank of England. She not only maintained world gold prices at $35 per ounce (there is just over 31 grams in an ounce) in the interests of Washington, but also traded gold, reporting every month to the American financial authorities on the work done. If it was necessary to increase the volume of metal sold, the pool participants returned gold from their reserves to the Americans. If the pool bought more than it sold, the difference was divided in a humiliating ratio: half went to the Americans, half to everyone else. Of this, the French received only 9 percent. Experts reported to de Gaulle that the damage caused to Europeans by the Gold Pool exceeded $3 billion.

Naturally, the general could not come to terms with the “golden status quo”, legally formalized at the UN Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. He was also not satisfied with the charter of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), tailored according to American patterns. “It is impossible to rule with the help of “buts,” de Gaulle said. The dollar, as an imposed equivalent of gold, was this nasty, annoying “but” for him. This could not go on any longer: “As long as the Western countries of the Old World are subordinate to the New World, Europe cannot become European...” And the man who, better than anyone else in the world, knew how to say “No!” Nazis and communists, collaborators and allies, superiors and subordinates, went on a “crusade” to Fort Knox.

Hold with banknotes

“The general had a long-standing and very peculiar “friendship” with American presidents,” Pierre Messmer, one of de Gaulle’s closest associates, a former prime minister and minister of defense of France, told an Itogi correspondent shortly before his death. - De Gaulle could not forgive Eisenhower for the fact that he was going to become the military governor of France. He even carried the special money printed in America with him in the convoy... Relations with Kennedy were no better. De Gaulle saw in him a father's boy, a superstar and a parvenu. The general, quite seriously, considered Jacqueline, his French wife, to be the only advantage of the young US president.”

He called Kennedy a “high school student,” and Johnson, even more scathingly, “a slaughterer.” The general knew that he was irritating the American establishment, especially after France accelerated the development of its own nuclear weapons programs in the early sixties. Not to mention that in January 1963, de Gaulle rejected the “multilateral nuclear force” created by the Pentagon. And then he removed the French Atlantic Fleet from NATO command. By that time, only two French divisions remained under American command instead of the once agreed upon fourteen. However, the Americans had no idea that these were only flowers!

In 1965, de Gaulle officially proposed to his American colleague Lyndon Johnson to exchange one and a half billion cash dollars from French state reserves for gold: “Is the American currency really convertible until it is required to be convertible?” Washington recalled that such an action by France could be regarded by the States as unfriendly - with all the ensuing consequences. “Politics is too serious a matter to be trusted to politicians,” the general retorted and announced France’s withdrawal from the NATO military organization.

Subsequently, it was mainly Parisians who communicated with the Americans. financial specialists. “All formalities have been completed. A representative of the Bank of France is ready to immediately present exactly half of the named amount to the US Treasury. The money has been delivered,” read the official dispatch from Paris that arrived in Washington. The exchange, according to the rules of the Gold Pool, could only be made in one place - the American Treasury. In the hold of the first French “money” ship, 750 million dollars were waiting to be unloaded. With an exchange rate of 1.1 grams of gold per dollar, the flight from the American currency was very effective for Paris. 825 tons of yellow metal is no joke. And a second ship was approaching with the same amount on board. And that was just the beginning. By the end of 1965, out of 5.5 billion dollars of French gold and foreign exchange reserves, no more than 800 million remained in dollars.

Of course, de Gaulle did not bring down the dollar alone. But French currency intervention created a most dangerous precedent for America. Following the unpredictable French, the zealous Germans also began to exchange dollars for gold bars. Only they turned out to be more cunning than the straightforward general. In front of the White House, Federal Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, a professor of economics and a committed monetarist, pointedly condemned the French for “treachery.” And under his breath, he collected dollars from the treasury of the Bundesrepublic and placed them in front of Uncle Sam: “We are allies, aren’t we? Exchange it if you promised!” Moreover, the amount was several times more than one and a half billion French dollars. The Americans were amazed by such impudence, but were forced to exchange “green” for gold. And then the central banks of other countries reached out to real values: Canada, Japan... The then reports about the state of the US gold reserves were similar to front-line reports about losses suffered in battles. In March 1968, Americans limited the free exchange of dollars for gold for the first time. By the end of July 1971, America's gold reserves had dropped to an extremely low level, according to US authorities - less than $10 billion. And then something happened that went down in history as the “Nixon shock.” On August 15, 1971, US President Richard Nixon, speaking on television, announced the complete abolition of the gold backing of the dollar. The IMF could only report that since January 1978, the Bretton Woods agreements have been ordered to live for a long time. The issuance of world currencies began to be carried out according to the principle of a financial pyramid, without checks and balances.

Golden Shock

By the way, America has not yet recovered from that gold shock. According to the World Gold Council, the United States remains the world's largest owner of the yellow metal - its reserves in 2003 exceeded 8.2 thousand tons. But it is a long way from restoring the reserves that the United States had during the heyday of the gold standard.

However, de Gaulle did not achieve the goals that he set for himself when he initiated a large-scale exchange of dollars for gold. The precious metal left international payments, but the dollar remained. With the abolition of the gold standard, it became the main reserve currency, essentially replacing gold as the universal equivalent. The replacement, however, is not entirely adequate. Unlike gold, the dollar is subject to significant fluctuations.

However, the system is still working. The US presidential administration, even being captured by trade and budget deficit, forces the whole world to pay on American debts. Almost every year, the US Congress is forced, when considering budget bills, to raise the national debt ceiling, which has exceeded $14 trillion. Structural problems are growing, more and more money is needed. And they are still entering the American economy.

It is extremely important for Washington that countries with excess currencies, primarily China, Japan and Russia, continue to buy large volumes of US debt. That is, aimlessly saving and hoarding dollars. After all, the size of the dollar reserves of the three above-mentioned countries is so large that, in fact, it is impossible to buy anything with them. All the gold in the world is not enough for this. But foreign government agencies cannot acquire, say, industrial enterprises in the United States - American law does not require it. There is a tendency when growing state debt America devalues ​​the foreign exchange reserves of other countries and forces them to finance American deficits. At the same time, Europe and Asian countries are not interested in a global financial collapse, and therefore the central banks of these countries are trying to support the United States by purchasing more and more debt obligations.

However, unlike the gold standard, virtual monetary system much less stable. Many central banks are deliberately reducing the share of American valuable papers in their reserves, and this trend can hardly be stopped. The dollar still continues to remain a single conventional measure of value, being at the same time the national currency of the United States. And this fatal contradiction is becoming more and more noticeable. So, during a crisis, all resources can be thrown either at strengthening the dollar as a potential gold equivalent, but then the situation in the American economy worsens, or at supporting American economy injections of cheap dollars, but then the world equivalent of value begins to collapse. Republican President Bush is an isolationist and advocates for the dollar as the national currency. This means that today the idea of ​​the dollar as a single measure of value is finally fading into oblivion. We may have to return to some kind of gold standard, where the measure of value will be, say, an average “basket of currencies.” Or invent new universal money, for example, using a unit of energy as a basis.

It all started with a deal that the ambitious General de Gaulle imposed on the Americans. When the meeting with the French president ended, Lyndon Johnson sighed with relief and admitted: “America associates only trouble with this man.” He knew what he was saying: John Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, Charles de Gaulle's birthday.

Germany decided to return its gold reserves from abroad. Germany moved part of its reserves to the USA, France and Great Britain during the “ cold war", fearing aggression from the USSR. Earlier, the Federal Audit Chamber recommended that the Central Bank reconsider the concept of storing gold, the reserves of which are the largest in Germany in the world after the United States. The auditors are allegedly not satisfied that the reserves placed abroad cannot be recalculated at any time. Although the movement of gold is essentially a technical operation, some media interpret Germany's desire to hold reserves at home as a sign of an impending collapse of the euro.

The distribution of gold in the world today is inextricably linked with the events that occurred at the end of World War II. In 1944, the Bretton Woods Agreement was signed, which established a new international monetary system. According to the agreement, the dollar became the world reserve currency. Its value was set at $35 per troy ounce, and the value of other world currencies was tied to it. After this, the established system was repeatedly criticized because, unlike the true gold standard (abolished in 1933), it allowed the United States to print dollars and thus “load” all countries that signed the agreement with its inflation.

Under the terms of the Bretton Woods agreement, countries were allowed to exchange their dollars for gold in the United States at any time. By that time, America had approximately half of the world's gold reserves. The volume of this metal in the country reached a historical maximum - 649.5 million troy ounces (20.2 thousand tons) - at the end of 1941. Some of the gold came to the United States as part of the allies' payments for weapons and equipment under the Lend-Lease program; some, as in the case of Germany, was simply moved for storage.

The United States has made no secret of its desire to maintain reserves at a stable level. This strengthened the position of critics: why be afraid of exchanging gold for dollars if the exchange rate of the American currency itself is stable? Subsequently, countries nevertheless exercised their right to return reserves to their homeland, and the then French President, General Charles de Gaulle, played a significant role in the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. As Time magazine reported in February 1965, de Gaulle became the first president to openly criticize the international monetary system. The head of France called for an end to the dominant role of the dollar and a return to the gold standard.

Paris sent a ship loaded with cash to the United States and exchanged $150 million for some of its gold. Then Spain and other countries followed the example of France. At the same time, spiteful critics criticized the United States for its failure to ensure the convertibility of dollars into gold.

In 1971, then US President Richard Nixon closed the “gold window” by prohibiting the exchange of US currency for gold. Thus, Washington managed to avoid massive sales of the dollar and strengthen the economy, and the world monetary system underwent the last significant reform to date - the market began to determine the value of the currency. This decision allowed the United States to stop the reduction in gold reserves, but foreigners still managed to exchange a significant part of the metal for dollars. Today, the volume of American gold is only 8.1 thousand tons, plus gold from other countries, which is stored in the United States.

Now a small reduction in these reserves will not have a significant impact on world economy, since after the dollar is delinked from gold, foreign countries are simply nominal holders of other countries' reserves. Therefore, Germany's decision to simply move some of its gold from the USA, France and Great Britain does not seem detrimental to financial markets, however, this operation will still have some consequences.

What will happen to the gold reserves?

Germany's gold reserves amount to 3.4 thousand tons (109.2 million ounces) - this is about $183.5 billion according to quotes as of January 15. Moreover, only 31 percent of these volumes are placed in the German Federal Bank. Approximately 45 percent of German gold is held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 11 percent by the Bank of France, and 13 percent by the Bank of England.

According to German media, the Federal Audit Chamber of Germany recommended that Central Bank employees check the availability of foreign gold personally (now foreign Central Banks send annual reports on Germany's reserves), and not rely on the honesty of foreigners. The Bundesbank responded that the regulators different countries do not check each other's reserves.

In this regard, market participants fear that central banks stopped trusting each other. In addition, investors are wondering what Germany will do with the gold transported to their homeland. If Berlin suddenly decides to hold a fire sale, like Venezuela did in 2011, metal prices will inevitably fall.

Perhaps the most pessimistic version is the inevitable collapse of the euro: supposedly the Central Bank is moving the metal to strengthen confidence in the stability of the German economy. This version was partially confirmed by the Bundesbank itself, indicating on January 16 that it was returning part of the gold in order to increase citizens’ confidence in the state.

The Bundesbank said that they plan to increase the share of German gold located in Frankfurt to 50 percent. In particular, by 2020 it is planned to transport 300 tons of metal from New York and 374 tons from Paris. It turns out that over seven years the Central Bank plans to move about 28 percent of foreign reserves.

France and the United States have not yet responded to Germany's decision. Many questions remain unresolved, including one of the most interesting - how much will it cost Germany to take security measures when transporting gold from Paris and New York?

At one time, the former Minister of Finance of France during the Clemenceau cabinet explained to de Gaulle the “trick with dollars” using such a clear example. A painting by Raphael is being sold at auction. The Arab offers oil, the Russian offers gold, and the Yankee, doubling down, lays out a wad of hundred-dollar bills and buys Raphael for $10,000. "What's the trick?" – de Gaulle was surprised. “And the fact,” answered the ex-minister, “is that the Yankees bought Raphael for three dollars, because the cost of paper for one hundred-dollar bill is three cents!”

The de-dollarization of France was the basis of the economic policy of General de Gaulle, his, as he himself put it, “the economic Austerlitz.” And on February 4, 1965, de Gaulle detonated the “bomb,” declaring at a press conference: “We consider it necessary that international exchange be established, as it was before the great misfortunes of the world, on an indisputable basis that does not bear the stamp of any particular country. On what basis? In truth, it is difficult to imagine that there could be any other standard than gold. Yes, gold does not change its nature: it can be in bars, bars, coins; it has no nationality, it has been ancient and accepted by the whole world as a constant value. There is no doubt that even today the value of any currency is determined on the basis of direct or indirect, real or perceived connections with gold. In international exchange, the highest law, the golden rule (it is appropriate to say this here), a rule that should be restored , is an obligation to ensure the equilibrium of the balance of payments of different currency zones through actual receipts and expenditures of gold."

This speech by de Gaulle was of fundamental importance. The president of one of the world's leading "gold powers" proposed returning in international settlements to the system that existed before the "great misfortunes of the world" - two world wars, that is, to a system based on a rigid peg of world currencies to gold, and not to the dollar. And such a “peg,” or “golden discipline,” obliged a lot, limiting the possibilities for stock exchange and financial speculation. Until 1914, as is known, the hardest world currencies were the English pound sterling and the Russian ruble, fully backed by gold reserves.

Two world wars undermined the “gold standard” system, as a result of which in 1944 the so-called Bretton Woods monetary and financial system was adopted, which established currency parities “in gold as a common denominator,” but not directly, but indirectly, through the dollar, the gold-dollar standard . This meant that the dollar was practically equal to gold and became the world monetary unit, with the help of which (through conversion) all international payments were made. Moreover, none of the world currencies, other than the dollar, were directly convertible into gold.

In addition to virtually unlimited rights as a world monetary unit, the dollar also assumed all obligations for gold backing, maintaining a firm, fixed exchange rate - 1.1 dollars per gram of pure metal.
And with this the dollar signed its own death sentence. By the end of the 60s, it became clear that neither the gold reserves of the United States itself, nor the reserves of the IMF, nor the reserves of the US allies in the “gold pool”, which provided for mutual support of the gold-dollar standard, were able to stop the “flight from the dollar.”

The collapse of the dollar was predetermined. US gold reserves were melting literally before our eyes: at times 3 tons a day. And this, again, despite all the conceivable and inconceivable measures that the United States took to stop the outflow of gold, to make sure that the dollar was “convertible until it is required to be convertible.” The possibilities for exchanging dollars for gold were limited in every possible way: it could only be carried out at the official level and only in one place - the US Treasury. But the numbers speak for themselves: from 1949 to 1970, US gold reserves fell from 21,800 to 9,838.2 tons - more than half.

General de Gaulle put an end to this “flight from the dollar”, not limiting himself to just declaring the need to eliminate the priority of the dollar. From words, he moved to action, presenting the United States with 1.5 billion green pieces of paper for exchange. A scandal broke out. The United States began to put pressure on France as a NATO partner. And then General de Gaulle went even further, announcing France’s withdrawal from NATO, the liquidation of all 189 NATO bases on French territory and the withdrawal of 35 thousand NATO soldiers. To top it all off, during his official visit to the United States, he presented $750 million in exchange for gold. And the United States was forced to make this exchange at a fixed rate, since all the necessary formalities were observed. General de Gaulle acted according to all the rules of military art. He used his own “weapons” against the “enemy”, with the help of which he led (and is leading!) to bankruptcy of others national currencies. De Gaulle directed “dollar intervention” against the United States.

Of course, such a scale of “intervention” could not “bring down the dollar”, but the blow was struck at the most vulnerable place - the “Achilles heel” of the dollar. General de Gaulle created a most dangerous precedent for the United States. Suffice it to say that from 1965 to 1967 alone, the United States was forced to exchange its green notes for 3,000 tons of pure gold. Following France, Germany presented dollars for exchange for gold.
But the United States soon took no less unprecedented protective measures, unilaterally abandoning all of its previously accepted international obligations regarding the gold backing of the dollar.

The dollar distanced itself from gold and broke the “golden chains”.

Since then, in fact, we should count down recent history US dollar and paper money as such. From scratch...

The already mentioned book "Economics" gives the following definition of the dollar in its new quality. “Roughly speaking,” the authors note, “the acceptability of paper money is supported by the fact that the state says: these dollars are money. In our economy, paper money is essentially fiat money, it is money because the state says so, and not because they are redeemed with any precious metal."

American professors and economists, perhaps without knowing it themselves, quite accurately expressed the essence of the dollar - as purely conditional, unsecured money, in comparison with which even Mephistophelian “credit cards” were a much more reliable, “hard” currency, which presupposed the fulfillment of credit obligations. obligations at least in the future. There the “paper” served at least as a “mortgage”, but here there is an absolute absence of any obligations both in the present and in the future. This entire worldwide “dollar mirage” is based only on the fact that the United States has declared, declared dollars as money, just as the natives of the same America once declared coffee beans or shells as money. There is no fundamental difference between dollars and shells - neither one nor the other equally represents (unlike gold) any real value.

All this means that in the event of a financial collapse (and it is inevitable!) the United States will not be obliged - neither to states nor to individual citizens - to provide dollars with gold or any other “goods and services.” The US will not even have to abandon its obligations, as it did with demonetization, since in this case there are simply no obligations. The dollar does not say, "Backed by all the assets of the United States of America." It costs the United States nothing, for example, to one day “dump” foreign holders of “bucks”: to organize such an exchange of money in which all cash dollars located outside the country at the time of exchange will lose their value and turn into empty pieces of paper (which , in fact, they are).

The idea of ​​dollar stability is based on the Federal Reserve's data on minimal inflation and a deficit-free budget. Given the instability of other currencies and, most importantly, the fall in gold prices, which has always been the straw for those drowning during all monetary and financial shocks, the “stable dollar” actually replaced gold and became (instead of gold) the most reliable means of protection against inflationary processes.

But it is precisely in this extreme situation that perhaps the only chance of salvation for the dollar will be the US gold reserve and... a return to gold backing. There is nothing incredible about this. Many leading economists in the United States itself are in favor of a return to gold backing. There is no other protection, although the search for one is apparently underway. (Suffice it to recall the excitement that arose in the press around the isotope osmium-187.) It is not by chance that all these years the United States continued to keep its gold reserves intact, without making a single attempt to dump the “surplus.” Moreover, there is every reason to assume that the “flight from gold” itself was nothing more than a diversionary maneuver, a tactical device that allowed the United States not only to save, but also to increase its strategic gold reserves.