The Weekly Note

The Gold Goes Home

People forget how quickly the world can change. In February 1965, Charles de Gaulle stood in front of hundreds of journalists at the Élysée Palace and said the one thing no Western leader was allowed to say. He called for the world to return to gold. Not to the dollar. Not to promises. To the one asset, he said, that "has no nationality" and is "eternally and universally accepted." Washington laughed at the old general. Then France stopped laughing and started converting. Through the mid-