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France pulls last gold held in US

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Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#191

Post by erikerikson »

mort96 wrote: post #56
codethief wrote: post #51

Is anyone here actually reading the article? Yes, they really made a gain of $15B: > But instead of refining and transporting the gold, it opted to sell the bars and purchase new bullion in Europe. […] Due to rising gold prices, the move helped the bank to generate a capital gain of 13 billion euros ($15 billion),

This doesn't make sense. If they first sold the bars held in the US, then the gold prices rose, then they bought gold in Europe, how the hell did that amount to a capital gain of $15b? How exactly do prices rising over the course of the process lead to these $15b?

Imagine they bought the gold in the US for 1b and sold for 16b. Yes they turned around and purchased 16b of order gold immediately but there's was still a transaction where they sold an asset for more than they bought it.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#192

Post by throw0101c »

dkga wrote: post #153
throw0101c wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly debatable. De Gaulle started this 'policy' in 1965 and it's mainly the current leadership situation that's been a problem—60 years later. So to a certain extent the policy in question was 'wrong' for decades. How "right" can you really consider them when it was a problem year after year, decade after decade: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Penny It reminds me of the folks that keep saying there will b…

I disagree. It was a right policy in the sense that it bought France an insurance policy that essentially no other Western country has. Like all insurance policies, you hope to be wrong, but when the time comes, you are protected from some of the worse case scenarios.

Yes, this is the debatable part: the policy is "wrong" for 60 years and extracted a cost to France over those years (at least when it came to nuclear weapons?).

There just happened to be a whacko that got into the White House, but if ~70k (out of >100M) had gone the other way in 2016, Hillary Clinton would have won and the world would be a different place. (See also ~500 votes in Bush versus Gore.)

I'd be curious to know the 'insurance premium' that was paid by France every year and the total.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#193

Post by mort96 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #98
mort96 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it count as a "political reason" if their risk management calculations crossed a threshold where it's worth it to move the gold back? I imagine such calculations are done and revised all the time and account for the perceived stability and reliability of a country.

Russia's frozen assets probably were considered safe by the similar calculations. Everything is safe until it is not.

I don't understand what point you are making.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#194

Post by bigfishrunning »

_heimdall wrote: post #185
lazide wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most delivery trucks (like a box truck) have capacities more like 10 or 20 tons. A heavy freight truck, like used to load ships? Even more.

Was that the case in the 60s as well? I know trucks of that era had much lower capacity than today, even when comparing across class like "half-ton" trucks.

A half-ton truck is a consumer pick-up truck, not a commercial shipping vehicle. Much much smaller.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#195

Post by iamsomewalrus »

moffkalast wrote: post #117
u1hcw9nx wrote: post #105

>However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold. French-US monetary history after WWII: Under the Bretton Woods agreement (1944-1971), the US dollar was the world’s reserve currency, and it was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. Other countries pegged the…

De Gaulle of this man.

Underrated comment

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#196

Post by rdtsc »

_heimdall wrote: post #185
lazide wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most delivery trucks (like a box truck) have capacities more like 10 or 20 tons. A heavy freight truck, like used to load ships? Even more.

Was that the case in the 60s as well? I know trucks of that era had much lower capacity than today, even when comparing across class like "half-ton" trucks.

Yup that's what I had in mind, a 60s city delivery truck, not a semi, so googled that and came up to about 10t.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#197

Post by enoint »

enoint wrote: post #159
rdtsc wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> trade, then French Navy picked those gold bullions from NY I couldn’t find any clear news source or academic reference to that event. I see a lot of references on gold buying/selling sites mostly. I would imagine a Fench Navy ship docked NY and loading tons of gold would make quite a stir.

https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... Whether the exact ship was a battleship or a destroyer might make the search result.

https://archive.ph/ioukS

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#198

Post by bhouston »

rdtsc wrote: post #150
u1hcw9nx wrote: post #105

>However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold. French-US monetary history after WWII: Under the Bretton Woods agreement (1944-1971), the US dollar was the world’s reserve currency, and it was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. Other countries pegged the…

> trade, then French Navy picked those gold bullions from NY I couldn’t find any clear news source or academic reference to that event. I see a lot of references on gold buying/selling sites mostly. I would imagine a Fench Navy ship docked NY and loading tons of gold would make quite a stir.

> I couldn’t find any clear news source or academic reference to that event.

It happened though. Here are the sources for it:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock#Criticism_and_decl...

- https://www.thegoldobserver.com/p/how-france-secretly-repatr...

- https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/1994/128/arti...

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#199

Post by mrb »

rdtsc wrote: post #150
u1hcw9nx wrote: post #105

>However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold. French-US monetary history after WWII: Under the Bretton Woods agreement (1944-1971), the US dollar was the world’s reserve currency, and it was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. Other countries pegged the…

> trade, then French Navy picked those gold bullions from NY I couldn’t find any clear news source or academic reference to that event. I see a lot of references on gold buying/selling sites mostly. I would imagine a Fench Navy ship docked NY and loading tons of gold would make quite a stir.

As a French speaker, I looked up French sources and found https://www.lesechos.fr/finance-marches/banque-assurances/st... - here is a snippet translated to English below. But many more references can be found by googling "opération vide-gousset".

1963: Operation Empty-the-purse ("vide-gousset")

It was also by warship that De Gaulle planned to conduct "Operation Empty-the-purse" in 1963, the code name for the repatriation of French gold deposited at Fort Knox in the United States (1). More than 1,150 tons—the result of converting French dollars into gold, a decision made by De Gaulle in response to the lax monetary policy of the United States—were being used to finance a growing trade deficit through the printing of money.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, then Minister of Finance, recounts (2): "De Gaulle was getting impatient and asked me at every meeting: 'So, has that gold finally come back?' One day, he told me: 'We need to move much faster: we're going to send the navy cruiser 'Colbert' which will bring back all the gold that's still there.'" “I told him that if we did that, we would alienate American public opinion forever.” Ultimately, De Gaulle abandoned the Colbert plan, and French gold returned from the United States in small quantities. Not for very long, it's true. The events of May 1968 and the ensuing monetary crisis depleted the reserves, which fell from 4,650 tons to 3,150 – 1,500 tons had crossed the Atlantic again to defend the franc, which De Gaulle refused to devalue.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#200

Post by kipchak »

rdtsc wrote: post #150
u1hcw9nx wrote: post #105

>However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold. French-US monetary history after WWII: Under the Bretton Woods agreement (1944-1971), the US dollar was the world’s reserve currency, and it was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. Other countries pegged the…

> trade, then French Navy picked those gold bullions from NY I couldn’t find any clear news source or academic reference to that event. I see a lot of references on gold buying/selling sites mostly. I would imagine a Fench Navy ship docked NY and loading tons of gold would make quite a stir.

I seem to be having more luck with French language sources, mostly the Bank of France records. From what I can tell the shipping was done mostly commercially with some later by air[1]. Reportedly De Gaulle was frustrated with the speed of change wanted to use the Colbert warship but was dissuaded by the minister of finance.[2]

[1]https://archives-historiques.banque-france.fr/ark:/56433/115...

[2]https://www.lesechos.fr/finance-marches/banque-assurances/st...

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