Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 857 posts

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#401

Post by whimsicalism »

colechristensen wrote: post #391
seanw444 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 attacke…

Call me a traditionalist but I do think having free/fair elections is a massive distinguishing factor.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#402

Post by epistasis »

monero-xmr wrote: post #386
epistasis wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think one step further. When a different currency becomes the reserve currency, the currency rises in value, the holders become far wealthier, get their imports for cheaper, and suddenly they can even subsidize their local industries that rely on exports to the point that it's a smooth transition to more of a consumer economy.

[flagged]

> no armies, can’t defend itself, can’t make energy.

Look I love dumping on the Europoors as much as anyone, but even I can see that this is a bit extreme. "Decadence?" What does that even mean here? That people are happy and secure and have good qualities of life, without worrying about everything falling apart?

The US is not fine, and is falling apart. The US is living decadently on its reserve currency status, which enable things like ridiculously wasteful and unproductive military spending. Even its military spending on things like the, say, F35, require external customers in order for it to make any sense at all. But all that decadence is at risk. Decadence is good, I want it, I don't want austerity. Give me this awesome US decadence or I'll have to settle for the fake European "decadence" which is mere economic and health security without all the extra spending that US consumers get to make.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#403

Post by senderista »

adventured wrote: post #136
epistasis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "nearly limitless" source of borrowing, the limit is the gain in global wealth. The US has been siphoning off a huge chunk of world wealth by printing dollars to serve as the currency for that wealth. All the people complaining about "US Debt" and $26T of "net investment" or whatever don't realize that this is/was the benefit of the US being stable, strong, and friendly. When the US is unstable, weak, an…

The US is more stable than the powers of Europe (which have constant political upheavals, snap elections that completely remake the political landscape, etc). You're confusing Trump's mouth with how the US political system actually functions. Just because the US changes political direction, that doesn't equate to instability. Its aims are changing, like it or not, good or bad. The US deciding it wants Greenland is no…

Sorry, Trump insisting on annexing Greenland is not a "change in strategic goals", it's a toddler's petulant obsession. The US already had carte blanche from Denmark to do pretty much whatever it wanted in Greenland.

Besides Trump, I doubt there's another official in the WH who wants this. They are all just humoring the demented old man.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#404

Post by throwaway290 »

corimaith wrote: post #229
epistasis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "nearly limitless" source of borrowing, the limit is the gain in global wealth. The US has been siphoning off a huge chunk of world wealth by printing dollars to serve as the currency for that wealth. All the people complaining about "US Debt" and $26T of "net investment" or whatever don't realize that this is/was the benefit of the US being stable, strong, and friendly. When the US is unstable, weak, an…

You do realise it is arthimetically impossible to balance all the desired export surpluses of the EU, China, Japan, etc together without the US as the demand sink right? Whatever adjustment comes is certainly going to require somebody to act in a manner contrary to their current strategies, and it's going to be a painful adjustment. And which is harder? Bringing back production to satiate domestic demand or increasin…

> balance all the desired export surpluses of the EU, China, Japan, etc together without the US as the demand sink

in 2022 China, Russia exported around 630 billion USD, US imported around 950 billion USD. maybe the world will not end if these three just go and play in a separate sandbox;)

> it's going to be a painful adjustment.

even if demand falls a bit it's not the end of the world if it becomes more sustainable afterwards (less overproduction, consumer waste, gassing the environment)

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#405

Post by _DeadFred_ »

adventured wrote: post #219
Retric wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has never dealt with hyperinflation.

The US isn't going to get hyperinflation. It's going to get a Japan style heat death. More and more wealth concentrated into low yielding debt, rather than invested into growth, while purchasing power is chewed up by persistent currency debasement. Japan never did suffer real deflation (that was a lie), it suffered massive inflation: they debased the Yen to garbage levels, drastically chopping down the standard of li…

Good thing our productive capital is safely all tied up into quickly depreciated AI infra then.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#406

Post by glemion43 »

rayiner wrote: post #368
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.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#407

Post by monero-xmr »

epistasis wrote: post #402
monero-xmr wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> no armies, can’t defend itself, can’t make energy. Look I love dumping on the Europoors as much as anyone, but even I can see that this is a bit extreme. "Decadence?" What does that even mean here? That people are happy and secure and have good qualities of life, without worrying about everything falling apart? The US is not fine, and is falling apart. The US is living decadently on its reserve currency status, whi…

[flagged]

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#408

Post by colechristensen »

whimsicalism wrote: post #401
colechristensen wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 attacke…

Call me a traditionalist but I do think having free/fair elections is a massive distinguishing factor.

Having free elections doesn't make you the good guys if you elect a tryant to be a tyrant. Republicans are getting what they voted for and they STILL want what's happening. I've heard them say it.

This leftist idea that everything will just be ok and we don't need to do anything because it'll all be fixed in the next election needs to stop.

Right now the only people actually protecting the republic are the people in the streets because NOBODY else is accomplishing anything.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#409

Post by ljf »

meling wrote: post #354
OrvalWintermute wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who has 8 week vacations, let alone 12? No European country I’m aware of, but I didn’t check all…

Austria has 30 days leave after 25 years service (other wise 25 days) - so that is 6 weeks, plus 13 public holidays. So some people get around 8 weeks there.

Here in the UK, I get 29 days leave, I buy 5 more, plus get 8 bank holidays - so 42 days leave - or 8 weeks. Plus volunteering days and training days... but that isn't that common.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#410

Post by xorcist »

kyboren wrote: post #305
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.

NATO came into being to deal with the USSR, which was the preeminent threat to all NATO members. The US wasn't expected just to come save Europe; European states had real military power and the will to bring it to bear against the US's main adversary. In a conflict with the USSR, the US could rely on Europe to fight with them. Very valuable. Today, US policymakers see China as the main adversary. But European states…

> stop relying on America to fight the Russians for them,

That's a very uncharitable take. Europe relies on NATO to fight the Russians. Of course it does. There is no alternative, and the US would never allow other credible alliances to form. Because why would they? It's certainly not in their interest.

It's good that Europe spends more in security, and it's good that Europe seems to be serious about Ukraine. However western Europe is something else. If push really would come to shove, there is zero chance Russia could take and hold continental Europe.

The population is larger, the economy is larger by a ridicolous amount, and there are French and British nukes positioned all over. What Europe is mainly lacking military projection in the Pacific and the Middle East, and that's not likely to change.

Post reply on HN