Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries • Hacker News Board

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#391

Post by colechristensen » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

seanw444 wrote: post #337

colechristensen wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also stupid. A US civil war which went far enough to fragment the country would in actuality be a global WWIII and lead to billions of deaths.

And a new global leader, likely in the form of China. Which I'm sure everyone would see as an improvement. Right?

You have to ask yourself, compared to current US leadership, is China actually all that bad?

US is being driven by the personal whims of a deteriorating tyrant, Congress is allowing it and the courts are only doing a tiny amount of checking his power.

You can't just say "despite everything happening we're still the good guys and China and Russia are the bad guys!"

Osama bin Ladin won. The goals he had when he attacked America have been entirely achieved. Americans got stupid and became susceptible to the society changing effects of terrorism. He got us to destroy ourselves.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#392

Post by mikkupikku » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #216

adventured wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

NATO members aren't particularly large customers for American weapons. Poland is the largest, but is dwarfed by Japan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Ukraine is receiving a bunch of weapons, but that math isn't so straight forward (they're getting a ton of old stock) and they don't have much choice anyway.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#393

Post by jimnotgym » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

lpcvoid wrote: post #115

lostlogin wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when the alternatives are people like.. Hilary Clinton ? Would she have been worse than this? And the US had a better choice the second time.

Hilary Clinton could have literally entered office and done nothing , and still be better for the American people than the current admin, which is making life more difficult every week for not just Americans, but a good part of the whole world. But hey, the libs were owned, so I guess that's good or something.

>Hilary Clinton could have literally entered office and done nothing

Like Keir Starmer has in the UK. He got elected for saying nothing too. Country didn't get much worse. Maybe we should have 5 years off changes now and then?

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#394

Post by testing22321 » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #113

alphazard wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's symbolism. It's not. This is where the financial rubber meets the road, actions have consequences, and the rest of the world is looking at the US as increasingly unlikely to pay above inflation on its debts. The people managing the pension funds (if they are acting in good faith) really want to generate yield, and really want to preserve capital for the Danish people. They don't want to symbolically do those t…

There's no chance US will default on its debts, all it has to do is to print more money. Inflation may spirale, but it's going to be a US citizens problems (as well as US bond holders) in terms of inflation and budget cuts.

Defaulting on the debt would be a great “emergency” that requires elections to be cancelled…

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#395

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #383

jfengel wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been mumblings about mineral wealth, and about strategic bases. None of them really make a lick of sense. It does not look as if it's serious. But this is a deeply unserious administration, so it's hard to guess.

Possibly to deter Greenland from becoming independent, wt least without guarantees it will stay in NATO and economically within the western sphere.

[deleted]

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#396

Post by spamizbad » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

eggy wrote: post #243

spamizbad wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no chance US will default on its debts Until Trump says he's going to, then his boosters will declare its a genius maneuver and actually its Joe Biden's fault (Joe made him do it!)

Do you the think the EU and its individual country members from 1949 to present carried their fair share of the NATO spending ($55 to $60T), or troops and equipment deployments, or did they "default" on their side of the treaty? The US has paid 65 to 70% of the total of $1.4 to 1.5T/year from 2018 to 2025. That's 9.8T in 8 years (2018 included). Our soldiers, not theirs, carried the weight. If you go per capita, The…

You're counting the entire US military budget as "NATO spending" which is not a useful way to look at things. We only contribute roughly $800M to NATO's shared budget (about 16%)[1]

[1]https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/us-contributes-16-nato-an...

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#397

Post by notahacker » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

anabab wrote: post #255

lateforwork wrote: post #141

This quote from Trump is very revelatory: “I’m a real estate developer, I look at a corner, I say, ‘I’ve got to get that store for the building that I’m building,’ etc. It’s not that different. I love maps. And I always said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.’” Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/us/politics/trump-greenla...

Ah, it is all Mercator's fault

Feels like the exception to the rule that Mercator has no impact. Probably not coincidence it involves the head of state whose arguments that Northern California could water Southern California appears to stem from belief that water flowing from north to south is going downhill all the way :)

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#398

Post by orwin » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

boricj wrote: post #360

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US and France are both nuclear armed, including nuclear armed submarines, which are the ultimate defence deterrent. It's hard to see any country wanting to get into conventional war with China, regardless of size of army and airforce - even the US is not going to do it unless actually attacked. At the end of the day if China seizes Taiwan (something Trump has made more likely by his seizing of Venezuala, now talk…

> The US and France are both nuclear armed, including nuclear armed submarines, which are the ultimate defence deterrent. Except for France's ASMP-A nuclear warning shot (which is not a tactical option by the way), all other independent European nuclear options (French or British SSBNs) are not only strategic, but they imply wiping entire countries off the map. All options also depend on whether the French President…

I'm pretty sure ASMPA-R is precise enough to be considered tactical, and the fallout small enough to easily consider its firing over blue water. Yes, the number of French tactical (sorry, "pre-strategic") nuke is limited (around 50), but i think that's enough of a detterent.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#399

Post by testing22321 » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #340

lostlogin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thread going on this topic says that Europe could sell about $10 trillion. That’s a lot, but also, it’s only a bit over 10 days trading at normal volumes (according to the numbers being discussed in this thread). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692052

For reference, 25-30% of US treasuries are foreign owned. It's still a lot but I think people over-estimate how much of US debt is foreign owned.

Sure, but if the majority of that foreign owned debt is sold off, it’s very likely there would be a run and everyone would try to sell in a panic.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#400

Post by glemion43 » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

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…

USA had this because it manufactured everything and got rich doing so.

NATO is / was USAs way of controlling Europe to have something against Asia.

It's time for us / Europe to let the USA being whatever and kicking them out

We (Germany) are quite well equipped making guns and tanks.

And btw it was our strategy to try to win over countries by NOT being the big bully but sure Russia and USA made it clear that this no longer works.

I hope USA leaves NATO and we kick them out sooner than later