New Gold Pool At The BIS Basle, Switzerland
The comments below are an edited and abridged synopsis of an article by Ronan Manly
This article is not about the 1961-1968 London Gold Pool; it is about collusive central bank discussions relating to an entirely different and more recent central bank Gold Pool arrangement.
These discussions took place in an era of soaring free market gold prices and in the midst of the run-up in the gold price to US$850 in January 1980.
They occurred at the highest levels in the central banking world and involved the world’s most powerful central bankers. The aim was to agree on joint central bank action to subdue and manipulate the free market gold price in the early 1980s.
These central bank meetings show intent to manipulate a free market gold price so as to distort gold pricing signals. The documents also illustrate the concern that a rising gold price in the free market creates for senior central bankers and shows that central bankers have no qualms about intervening to manipulate the gold price when they see it as a threat to their fiat currency monetary system.
The 1961-1968 Gold Pool was both a selling syndicate and a buying syndicate, where central banks attempted to replenish gold that had been used in gold price capping operations. The discussions on a new Gold Pool in 1979/1980 involved European central banks that wanted to buy gold for the Pool as well as sell gold from the Pool.
Central to illustrating how the most powerful central bankers in the world colluded to establish a new Gold Pool are a number of internal documents from the Bank of England, which provide a blueprint on the evolution of these discussions at the BIS, as well as providing insight into the thinking of the Bank of England executives involved in the meetings.