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Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

reuters.com

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Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#321

Post by JKCalhoun »

busterarm wrote: post #70
afavour wrote: post #42

It's symbolism. But it's important symbolism. Far more notable, I think, is Macron saying this morning that Europe needs more investment from China. Canada signing a deal with China to allow their cars to be sold in the country. It's all a sliding slope until it reaches a breaking point and falls off like a cliff. EDIT: to quote the Canadian PN earlier today: “American hegemony in particular helped provide public goo…

Canada needs cheaper cars than US manufacturers want to provide. US brand cars have all been going higher dollar and further up market in recent years. Quebec is famous for the "Quebec Special". Cars with manual everything. No AC. Manual windows. Completely stripped down to be as affordable/disposable as possible. Also the roads are absolute shit, they never wash off the salt, there used to be no inspections and titl…

> Canada needs cheaper cars than US manufacturers want to provide.

So does the U.S.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#322

Post by epolanski »

adventured wrote: post #206
azinman2 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re assuming the people in charge are sane, rationale, and value past decisions that have worked out. It’s quite clear with the now likely permanent damage to NATO this isn’t the case.

You're assuming NATO is somehow critical for the US. It is not. NATO is critical for the European powers (those not named Russia). The US doesn't require it. The US doesn't need to defend Europe any longer. And it's clear the Europeans don't want the US there, so it works out great. Europe can boost its defense spending by ~$300 billion to make up the difference, or not, whatever they choose to do is up to them. The…

Just a reminder that NATO troops have always been rallied by Washington and on top of that the US is the only country to have ever invoked article 5.

The European allies have put their money and more importantly blood into these conflicts.

Yes, we can all look at a geographical map and state that the USA is blessed geographically by being split by two oceans from anything major in the world and thus conclude that the US does not need Europeans to defend its borders.

In essence you're completely ignoring how US allies in form of NATO allowed US to thrive as the global military power by providing a deep web of support, logistics, bases, ports, intelligence and allowing the US to have a huge influence it has consistently leveraged for decades to its own benefit or needs. And that includes financial reasons (like buying US weaponry).

If US wants to pull out of NATO it is what it is, but this whole nonsense of NATO benefitting only the European allies when it's always Washington asking for other's blood and bases and logistics is just it: nonsense.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#323

Post by GJim »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #236
whimsicalism wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal supremacy will win, the MN governor will not tell local LE directly to prevent federal agents enforcing federal law. I understand that law is not popular among many right now, but that is how it will play out. There will not be civil war unless the military truly comes to assist in a Trump attempt to take power in 2028, which I think is very unlikely.

The US military spent $4T-$6T in Iraq and Afghanistan, losing ~7k soldiers and ~52k wounded [1]. The US has one of the highest per capita of gun ownership and less than a million soldiers on US soil [2] [3]. Federal supremacy is based on the concept of the US military winning a conflict when they haven't won one since WW2. Force projection via military hardware and popping into Venezuela to extract its leader is a fa…

> The US military spent $4T-$6T in Iraq and Afghanistan, losing ~7k soldiers and ~52k wounded

Denmark and the UK (to mention just two countries) also lost men fighting alongside America in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Look how they are being repaid.

Here is a rather sobering video from a British perspective: The Prime Minister responding to JD Vance by simply reading out in Parliament, the names of British soldiers who died supporting American operations.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/pm-honours-uk-troops-killed-123537...

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#325

Post by benterix »

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #283
jacquesm wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a one sided thing. The US has been allowed to do a lot of things under the NATO umbrella that it benefited from (such as: selling a vast quantity of arms). Soft power is a thing and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization came into being to deal with exactly the kind of situation that we are viewing today. To see the US bow out, and in fact threatening allies is duplicitous at best.

The Euros also underfunded their defense obligations and received huge amounts of US investment in facilities, enabling them to upfund social programs, socialized healthcare and most egregiously 8 - 12 week vacations which are completely unheard of in the US.

> The Euros also underfunded their defense obligations and received huge amounts of US investment in facilities, enabling them to upfund social programs, socialized healthcare and most egregiously 8 - 12 week vacations which are completely unheard of in the US.

It's hard to detect sarcasm through the screen but in case you're being serious and just repeat what Trump says, he does this because Americans are not stupid and are asking, why Europeans can enjoy free healthcare, education and 4-week holidays and we cant? The answer "because we sponsored them" makes no sense but finds fertile ground in the hearts of some people.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#327

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

whimsicalism wrote: post #287
JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > the US erupting into a civil war within 5 years, as they seem somewhat to have lost touch with reality. When your material needs are satisfied then only ideological battles remain to be won. And having lots of material stuff you have plenty to throw at the enemy. It's already happening. People are willing to forego their material needs and harm the country and themselves to 'own' and defeat the other side. The on…

I think effectively all empirics go against this notion, the only real counterexample I can think of is the Troubles. People living comfortable lives don't want to die and the ideology usually routes around that: look how morality has been evolving wrt the notion of 'sacrifice for the common good' - and we expect people will sacrifice their lives for their perception of the common good? doubt it

> > People living comfortable lives don't want to die

Trump is the prime example , why did he decide to abandon the lifestyle afforded by his 500 million dollar net worth to pursue a job where 27% of his predecessors where shot at? Abandoning comfortable life to risk death.

Why don't rich celebrities quit after the first death threat letter, when they already have a huge bag of money?

The material wealth at the extremes is a recipe for unstable and unpredictable behavior , not for calm and collected behavior. People engage in ego battles and fall in love with their ideas and are willing to go to war for them as in a world of abundance they are the only thing that matters in order to 'win'.

The most abstract things (interest rates ring a bell) become personal because ideas about them were conceived in self reflection during the infinite hours of thinking and wondering free time afforded by material abundance, killing off ideas becomes akin to killing part of self and becomes unacceptable to the ego.

This Is true for individuals and countries alike.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#328

Post by maxglute »

petcat wrote: post #116
fooster wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese are Canadian adversaries mostly because of the US. The US more or less forced Canada to hold Meng Wanzhou, which caused a huge rise in diplomatic tensions and cost Canada billions. Some thanks we got for that.

Doesn't China own most of the real estate in Canada. Did USA cause that

US buyers owns like 10x more real estate in Canada in $$$ terms than PRC buyers, and US tends to buy the strategic stuff like commercial/industry, something like 50% of all foreign controlled assets in Canada is controlled by US. VS PRC mostly buying houses, foreigners own like 5% of housing stock in Canada.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#329

Post by OrvalWintermute »

etc-hosts wrote: post #259
complianceowl wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think we should all be more shocked the US kidnapped the leader of another country.

That previous US leaders permitted Western Hemisphere nations to get so in bed with rival hegemonies for so long is the shocking thing.

Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#330

Post by palmotea »

jacquesm wrote: post #281
palmotea wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But "not getting bullied" is and entirely different thing than thinking a US civil war would be a good thing for the world or "reduce the global threat" (which is just bonkers). Like, we're all amateurs on a web forum, but it's best to avoid monomaniacal, first-order thinking.

Nobody hopes for that other than some guys that think that crashing the US lets them pick up the pieces like it happened with the USSR but on a much larger scale. If you honestly believe that the EU wants the US to descend into civil war then you you have your parties grossly mixed up.

> If you honestly believe that the EU wants the US to descend into civil war then you you have your parties grossly mixed up.

I don't think it does, but I'm not responding to them. I'm responding to someone who made a bonkers comment up-thread.

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