7 ms·
The fact that this question needs asking tells a lot about how other countries see the current administration.
by PowerElectronix 6mo ago
The fact that this question needs asking tells a lot about how other countries see the current administration.
- roenxi 6mo agoThey've been asking this question since before 2013. The writing has been on the wall since the US started demonstrating that it thinks debt monetisation is an acceptable strategy.
- gchamonlive 6mo agoHave outlets like Deutsche Welle been speaking like this since 2013? I don't really think so. Not to defend the past administrations, but that the question is starting to hit mainstream media does in fact tell a huge lot about this current one.
- _heimdall 6mo agoFrance was back in 1971, though it was less about safety and more about whether we actually had enough gold to delivery.
- gchamonlive 6mo agoWhich is ironic given it was once a huge colonial power
- raphman 6mo agoThis has been a topic of continuous debate since at least ~2000 in Germany. The German Wikipedia has a whole section covering it¹. Obviously, the debate gets more intense every time the relationship between Germany and USA gets strained. ¹) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Goldreserven#Diskussion_um_die_Lagerung_im_Ausland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Goldreserven#Diskussi...
- gchamonlive 6mo agoSovereignty is a matter of constant maintenance, but only recently has the discourse been affected by lack of trust in the admin itself, not only for transparency or logistics.
- swed420 6mo ago[flagged]
- delichon 6mo agoIt's hard to look at the judges nominated by the last two administrations and believe that they are the same.
- swed420 6mo ago[flagged]
- alsetmusic 6mo ago> think there is substantial difference between the two sub-parties You said something close enough. Yes, they're both terrible. Biden's admin allowed a genocide to take place in Gaza while pretending to give a damn about it and repeating propagandist lies from Israel. But the Trump admin is openly looting everything they can get their hands on. The real answer is something HN doesn't like so I won't advocate it openly, but it involves society paying to take care of people to provide homes, provide medical access, things like this. Neither party is interested in that. But only one is brazen about harming peopler and making content from it or unashamedly posting AI-generated memes. Seems kinda different to me.
- swed420 6mo agoYou're justifying evil using lesser-of-two-evils reasoning and then confused why evil remains. Consent.Manufacture();
- imjonse 6mo ago> The real answer is something HN doesn't like so I won't advocate it openly, but it involves society paying to take care of people to provide homes, provide medical access, things like this. Neither party is interested in that. There are enough people on HN who think working social democracy is a great option; not everybody here is a libertarian cryptobro, an eastern european with decades-long PTSD or a hardcore conservative.
- NicuCalcea 6mo agoEarliest I can find is 2017: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-repatriates-gold-reserves-ahead-of-schedule/a-40208045 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-repatriates-gold-reserves-ahea...
- gchamonlive 6mo agoRadically different tone
- raincole 6mo agoThey physically moved 300 tons of gold from the US to Germany during 2013~2017. I think actions weight more than words.
- gchamonlive 6mo agoActions don't happen in a vacuum, you have to take context into consideration
- pjc50 6mo agoDebt monetization is not happening. There's been significant expansion of the money supply, which got the US through COVID at a one-off cost of about 10% inflation in one year, which I think was a reasonable cost of covering the crisis (especially compared to the GDP response in less generous countries!) What's happening is a much simpler, more drastic concern: does the US respect its international commitments?
- input_sh 6mo agoThe US stopped respecting its international commitments in Trump's first term when it single-handedly withdrew from the JCPOA (singed by way more countries than just the US) without a single valid reason to do so. Since then, it flip-flopped on the Paris Agreement, single-handedly put tariffs on goods imported from literally every single country in the world, withdrew from WHO and so on and so on. Not only does the US not respect the commitments it already agreed to, it hasn't done so for the past 10 or years.
- mbac32768 6mo ago> Not only does the US not respect the commitments it already agreed to, it hasn't done so for the past 10 or years. These commitments were commitments by the administration in the White House at that time. They were not accords or treaties ratified by Congress. Agree with them or don't, they should have been understood as what they were: limited in legitimacy and free to be canceled by the next administration with no discussion. This isn't a matter of arcane political skullduggery, it's spelled out in the US Constitution's definition of treaty, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2. The people were not formally heard.
- 1718627440 6mo agoThe administration is administering the USA. It's the USA that commits. To other countries it does not matter what your internal rules are to what your country does.
- throw0101d 6mo ago
- AnimalMuppet 6mo ago"Debt monetization" and "seizing other countries' gold" are somewhat orthogonal.
- roenxi 6mo agoWell I can't speak for all the people who own gold, but I expect the order of actions they'd generally prefer is move the gold to a vault somewhere they think is financially stable first and then engage in a relaxed debate about the merits of storing gold here or there second. It doesn't cost that much to move a bit of metal around. If countries enter the lunatic phase of money printing you never quite know what they're going to do next. But it probably isn't going to be good for asset owners and it may well already be too late to get things out of well known vaults. Better to be a bit early.
- alex43578 6mo agoIf your neighbor was taking payday loans and pawning silverware, would you trust him to hold onto your jewelry?
- Spooky23 6mo agoIt a little different now. POTUS may not be put to bed before the sundowners hits and decide to order his minions to seize the gold on truth social.
- declan_roberts 6mo agoIf there's anything the last 16 years have taught us, it is that the USA seems especially resilient to leaders with cognitive decline.
- freejazz 6mo agoWhat a bizarre conclusion
- jkubicek 6mo agoI’m learning the opposite lesson. The US is surprisingly fragile and a single president with no morals or ethics can do far more damage than anyone could have imagined.
- nxor3 6mo agoAs if the US was different pre Trump.
- conorcleary 6mo agodon't be mad at the coin because it's laying the wrong way down
- nxor3 6mo agoWhat does this even mean? The US was not different pre Trump. I live here.
- conorcleary 6mo agothat's what I'm getting at ;-)
- RobotToaster 6mo agoThis question has needed asking since 1971, when Nixon "temporarily" ended USD gold convertibility, if not before.
- Zigurd 6mo agoSorry, but I really have to call this out as pedantic and irrelevant at a time when the main risk is the US going fascist. The Germans in particular are sensitive to that trend. They're not motivated by an abstract argument. Any moment you're going to see a comment about how they should've put their money in crypto or some foolishness like that. This is not about central banking or government issued currencies. This is about a specific risk of dictatorship and war.
- ascotan 6mo agoI don’t think this is correct. This is about German politics. Their central bank has been attempting to repatriate gold since 2013 in an effort to centralize their holdings. It’s also not just about the US. In theory, Germany could move all its gold holdings to Switzerland. Where there is a major trading hub. The fact that they want it back in the country is domestic politics.
- im3w1l 6mo agoEverything that happens in politics happens because someone managed to assemble a powerful enough coalition. Maybe some people wanted to repatriate gold before, but not enough to make it happen. Now suddenly, there are enough people.
- nkmnz 6mo agoI don't think so. Most Germans would be okay with having the gold transferred to Canada or Switzerland or the UK.
- seb1204 6mo agoFrance just did that and even made some gains. Was in HN today as well. Germany has lost it, no farsightedness or longer plan. So frustrating how the German gov is failing on these longer term issues and are ground up in day-to-day noise. Flood the zone with shit comes to mind.
- lwhi 6mo agoTrump is seen as an unpredictable, fickle, spiteful and erratic, dictator.
- snek_case 6mo agoThere probably should be a maximum legal age for the president and congresspeople (e.g. 65 aka "retirement age"). The guy is 78. It's common and expected for brain health to deteriorate, it's not a huge surprise, but the guy has too much ego/narcissism to ever admit that this is happening, and the people in his administration won't want to admit that they put a toxic narcissist with dementia into power and defended him way past the point where it was reasonable to do so. There's many simple, small changes the US could put in place to make its political system less corrupt.
- lwhi 6mo agoI saw my comment score rise to 4 and then reduce to 0. It beggars belief that this comment is even worthy of debate; the fact people actively disagree is astonishing.
- daveguy 6mo agoI think the split is between those who recognize it as true, and those who recognize it as true, but are mad you called it out. Because "politics on hn" or "dear leader during war time". Also, he's 79, and turning 80 this year. I'd be good with a limit of 75, which would mean no one in office at 80+.
- nxor3 6mo agoNo. People turned to Trump because the other side is equally ludicrous, refusing to address things as simple as urban crime and propagating meaningless feel-good solutions.
- mindslight 6mo agoWhile I agree with you about the pattern of impotent feel-good solutions, let us be clear that urban crime is a municipality, or possibly state-level problem. People turned to Grump because they wanted simple answers to complex problems (validating their own egos), and they doubled down (refusing listen to their fellow citizens) out of pure mass-media-induced spite.
- mathgradthrow 6mo agoDoes this question need asking?
- torben-friis 6mo agoToday, a large national poll in Spain showed trump as the largest national threat identified by citizens (81% agree), placing him well above putin. This is consistent even among right wing voters (71%). People also place "American military actions" and "global economic crisis caused by the US" as the largest global risks.
- lava_pidgeon 6mo agoWell this is very western Europe perspective given Spain's threat perception of Putin.
- torben-friis 6mo agoYes, Polish or Finnish people are probably more on edge towards the east, but it should still be a wakeup call that 8 out of 10 people see the US as the entity they're most terrified of, above any dictator.
- igor_akhmetov 6mo agoThe EU themselves "froze" (essentially confiscated) Russian assets, both state and private.
- senordevnyc 6mo agoUntil Germany invades their neighbor, I don’t see your point.
- igor_akhmetov 6mo agoThe EU considers breaking the rules and confiscating state and private assets normal to apply some political pressure on the opponent. They should expect US to do the same, because why not, especially under Trump. Given this, it's stupid to hold state's gold reserves in the US.
- Esophagus4 6mo agoExcept the US and EU weren’t opponents in the way that RU and EU are.
- throw-the-towel 6mo agoBut now they are becoming opponents. What's your point?
- Esophagus4 6mo agoO…K… I will expand on that, but you seem to be looking for a fight, so I’m not sure I’m going to enjoy this thread. Here we are: It is surprising to me in a bad way that someone thinks the relationship between the US and the EU (who have traditionally been allies) has become so adversarial that someone would compare it to the relationship between Russia and the EU. The comment was: the EU should expect the US to hammer them the same way they hammered Russia. And my point was, that would be a significant course change because for the US & EU to be like Russia & EU would be a significant change. That was my point. I hope that is clear now.
- wdr1 6mo ago> The fact that this question needs asking tells a lot about how other countries see the current administration. Not really. You just weren't paying attention before. To wit, countries (including Germany!) have been questioning the safety of storing gold in the United State long before the Trump administration. Examples 2012: Venezuela Receives Last Shipment of Repatriated Gold Bars https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-01-31/venezuela-receives-last-shipment-of-repatriated-gold-bars-1-?embedded-checkout=true https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-01-31/venezuela... 2013: Bundesbank to retrieve $200bn of gold reserves (Bundesbank is Germany’s independent central bank) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/15/bundesbank-retrieve-200bn-gold-reserves https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/15/bundesbank-ret... 2014: Netherlands moves 122.5 from New York https://www.dutchnews.nl/2016/02/85796-2/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/2016/02/85796-2/ There's obviously more, but that gives you a sense of it.