Morgenthau; Jesse Jones, the head of the RFC; and George Warren would meet with the president over his breakfast of soft-boiled eggs, to determine the price of gold for that day. They began at $31.36 an ounce. The next morning this increased to $31.54, then $31.76 and $31.82. No one had a clue how they went about setting the price, although everyone presumed that some subtle analyses of the world bullion and foreign exchange markets went into their calculations. In fact, the choice of price was completely random. All they were trying to do was push the price a little higher than the day
...more
