In 1961, eight central banks agreed to suppress the gold price, and markets spent seven years proving that governments cannot repeal scarcity. The London Gold Pool launched in 1961, assembling the United States, Britain, West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland into a coordinated intervention scheme. The goal was simple: keep gold trading at $35 per ounce, the price fixed by Bretton Woods since 1944. The mechanism was also simple: When private demand pushed gold above $35, the Pool sold from member reserves into the London market to crush the price back down. This worked while the dollar retained credibility and stopped working when it didn't. The United States ran growing budget deficits through the 1960s, financing both the Great Society and Vietnam simultaneously. Dollars flooded Europe. Foreign governments and private traders converted those dollars into gold at $35, understanding that the dollar supply was expanding faster than Fort Knox's gold supply. France, under de Gaulle, became particularly aggressive about redemptions, shipping dollars back to Washington and demanding bullion in return. He called dollar hegemony an "exorbitant privilege," and he was correct. By 1967, the Pool was hemorrhaging reserves. The British pound devalued in November, triggering a speculative panic. In March 1968 alone, speculators demanded 1,000 tonnes of gold. The Pool collapsed on March 17, 1968. Members suspended operations over a frantic weekend and introduced a two-tier system: official transactions at $35, private markets free to find their own level. You know where this ends. Nixon closed the gold window entirely on August 15, 1971, defaulting on America's international obligations and unleashing the inflationary decade that followed. The London Gold Pool was seven years of governments lying about how much money they had printed, enforced by selling other people's gold until the vault ran dry.