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Do you think having insight into a country’s assets is irrelevant? Or just this specific asset?

• cool_dude85 4y ago
  Yeah, it more or less doesn't matter. The US isn't in danger of having to liquidate assets, and if it was you'd have a lot worse problems on your hands than how many gold bars are in Ft. Knox. Why do you think it matters?
  • mypastself 4y ago
    Transparency, for one.
    • cool_dude85 4y ago
      That's a very general argument for a very specific request. Transparency is good, but nobody is coming on to HN asking citing transparency and asking for audited figures for the value of US-owned dump trucks, or how much wood pulp we could produce in Grand Tetons National Park, or how much money we could make grinding up the highway system for scrap metal. So why gold specifically?
      • mypastself 4y ago
        So your original question: > Why would anyone care how much gold the US government has? was not intended to dismiss interest in any particular asset, but to ask why there isn’t an equal amount of interest in assets other than gold. I can’t speak for the other commenters who raised the issue, but it’s presumably because the asset is far more valuable than the ones you’ve mentioned, and far easier to convert to other assets. It’s also been used as medium of exchange or reserve currency for much of human history, so expecting people to dismiss it out of hand based on prevailing theories espoused by modern monetary institutions wouldn’t be reasonable.