buying liquid resources when there was an excess supply. What constituted internationally acceptable resources for this purpose were gold, and other liquid assets denominated in key or reserve currencies, principally US dollars or UK pounds sterling. The IMF was to ensure that these standards were being followed as well as being the lender for temporary deficits, and balance of payment problems. Each member country contributed a predefined amount, or quotas, of national currencies and gold. This quota also determines the voting power on the IMF and the amount of resources that they may draw on from the Fund. Designed to foster monetary cooperation, the IMF sought to enforce strict rules of behaviour in a world based on the gold standard and fixed currency-exchange rates. The Fund had, in theory, strict rules regarding how much to lend and when it was to be repaid. In reality, however, the Fund had discretion to waive any normal limitations. In 1961 with the advent of the General Arrangements to Borrow (GAB), the Fund increased its ability to lend through arrangements to borrow from 10 major industrial countries. At the time, these agreements had enabled the IMF to have and additional $6 billion at its disposal. The Gold Standard, in theory, functioned to limit the ability of governments to issue currency at will, hence decreasing the purchasing power of money. It existed before the Bretton Woods agreement, but was suspended for reasons that we will see later. If, for example, the US dollar were defined as equal to 1/20 of an ounce of gold, then the number of dollars that the United States could issue would be constrained by its holdings of gold reserves. Moreover, if the UK defined its currency, the pound sterling, as 5/20 of an ounce of gold, the fixed exchange rate between the US and the UK, quite obviously would be $5 USD= 1 sterling. One specific problem with specie standards (that is a currency convertible into a standardised unit...