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Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

economictimes.indiatimes.com

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Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#81

Post by avidiax »

hax0ron3 wrote: post #75
Larrikin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that?

Illegal immigration brings masses of people from more corrupt, disordered, and perhaps lower average intelligence societies into the US in conditions that make it hard for even the ones who are capable of assimilation to assimilate. It also constitutes a massive flouting of the law for the benefit of business, which sets a bad precedent and lowers public trust in institutions. It also contributes to rising racial ten…

If you really want to get rid of illegal immigrants, you don't need ICE doing sweeps.

Just make them unemployable. Setup an effective employment eligibility system, and require that employers verify the workers in the system before any payment over $100. Collect biometrics from workers and verify against IRS records. Employers that flout this get fines of 10x wages paid, up to N% of revenue, and maybe jailtime for owners and managers that knowingly violate.

What we have in the U.S. is a bunch of people and politicians loudly decrying illegal immigration and illegal employment, but enjoying the fruits of that illegal employment while paying a fraction of what legal workers would have to be paid.

There's huge appetite for a police state against the little guy, and no appetite for that same police state against business owners and managers.

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#82

Post by hax0ron3 »

avidiax wrote: post #81
hax0ron3 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illegal immigration brings masses of people from more corrupt, disordered, and perhaps lower average intelligence societies into the US in conditions that make it hard for even the ones who are capable of assimilation to assimilate. It also constitutes a massive flouting of the law for the benefit of business, which sets a bad precedent and lowers public trust in institutions. It also contributes to rising racial ten…

If you really want to get rid of illegal immigrants, you don't need ICE doing sweeps. Just make them unemployable. Setup an effective employment eligibility system, and require that employers verify the workers in the system before any payment over $100. Collect biometrics from workers and verify against IRS records. Employers that flout this get fines of 10x wages paid, up to N% of revenue, and maybe jailtime for ow…

I agree that your idea would be better. That said, it is still quite possible that even Trump's immigration approach is overall more good than bad for the country.

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#83

Post by BobbyJo »

cmcaleer wrote: post #73
BobbyJo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a reserve currency puts a gun to your economy's head. It creates an asymmetry where domestic production of material goods has to jump a gap created by favorable exchange rates in PPP terms. Its great for the day to day life style of your citizens, as other economy's do indeed pay tribute, in a sense, to their consumption of goods produced overseas. However, being paid to do nothing becomes a real problem when t…

It's as much a gun to adversaries' heads if they hold lots of your bonds (China used to hold over $1T in USTs) so they would have an interest in not having that blow up by not annoying the US so much they refuse to pay foreign bonds. It's also kind of neat as a financial MAD instrument, because China obviously can't just get everyone to go into their brokerage and market sell a trillion in USTs so they get a lever to…

> It's as much a gun to adversaries' heads if they hold lots of your bonds (China used to hold over $1T in USTs)

There is a complicated dynamic at play to consider there. Treasuries and the strength of the dollar only matter to wrt international trade, for both China and the US. You have to ask yourself if the value of the dollar went to 0 for that use case, who would be in a worse position, the one that sells dollars to support consumption, or the one that buys them as a tool for trade with 3rd parties?

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#84

Post by unsnap_biceps »

hax0ron3 wrote: post #82
avidiax wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really want to get rid of illegal immigrants, you don't need ICE doing sweeps. Just make them unemployable. Setup an effective employment eligibility system, and require that employers verify the workers in the system before any payment over $100. Collect biometrics from workers and verify against IRS records. Employers that flout this get fines of 10x wages paid, up to N% of revenue, and maybe jailtime for ow…

I agree that your idea would be better. That said, it is still quite possible that even Trump's immigration approach is overall more good than bad for the country.

It's really not. They're deporting less people than Biden did during the same time[1]. They're spending record amounts of money per person deported as well.

I don't disagree that we should be deporting people faster, but this is not the way to accomplish that goal at all. Nor should we be building huge detention facilities. We should be making the process go smoother and faster, not holding people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_in_the_second_Trum...

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#85

Post by theossuary »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #74
fnordpiglet wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lives a day to day life, I’m pretty happy for things that are good for my day to day life. Some abstract quasi moralistic reason that things should be tougher so we compete harder feels a little out of touch. I’d note that it’s not the case the US produces nothing, or that it’s lost its capacity to innovate. Effectively most technology, especially software, but hardware as well, is concentrated in the…

I'm not going to take a side in the broader discussion here, however your response fails to engage with what was previously written. > Some abstract quasi moralistic reason What was presented was neither abstract nor moralistic. The argument was one of driving towards a cliff and taking preemptive action before reaching it.

No, it was driving towards a cliff and deciding to jump out of the car instead of pressing the breaks. If you're costing at work, worried about being laid off some day, the last thing you do is just quit; you job hunt and try to change habits. Pretending like we have to feel immense pain to strengthen the economy is the quasi moralistic reasoning of a moron

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#86

Post by hax0ron3 »

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #84
hax0ron3 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that your idea would be better. That said, it is still quite possible that even Trump's immigration approach is overall more good than bad for the country.

It's really not. They're deporting less people than Biden did during the same time[1]. They're spending record amounts of money per person deported as well. I don't disagree that we should be deporting people faster, but this is not the way to accomplish that goal at all. Nor should we be building huge detention facilities. We should be making the process go smoother and faster, not holding people. [1] https://en.wik…

Even if Trump's approach is worse than Biden's, which I'm not sure of, that still does not mean it is bad for the country.

Counting deportations alone does not count people who decide not to come at all.

Also, note that I did not say that we should necessarily be deporting more people. I am actually pretty neutral on illegal immigration. But I am trying to address the question of what is good for the country, which is a different thing from what my personal preferences are.

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#87

Post by overfeed »

ETH_start wrote: post #71
SilverElfin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a self decapitation exactly. I think Trump, his family, his corporate donors, and other friends are all willing to sacrifice everyone else - including the lead America had - to make themselves rich and powerful. Every single decision to spend - defense, ICE contracts, AI, approvals of anticompetitive acquisitions, changes to regulations, etc - is making that circle richer at our expense. They don’t care if A…

The US lead over the EU in per capita productivity has massively grown over the last 20 years. There's no indication of waning American power. America has produced 70 times more stock market wealth if you look only at companies created within the last 50 years than the EU. And this is not all paper wealth. If you look at technological sophistication, whether that's frontier AI models, leading-edge pharmaceutical drug…

> It's because the EU has largely fixated itself on reducing wealth inequality by punishing those who succeed.

It's actually because America pivoted[1] from manufacturing to higher-margin services (financial, tech[2]), and generations of American Diplomats had negotiated trade deals that ensure American services are never shut-out or hobbled in most countries. American companies won't look so special,or be nearly as profitable, once they lose their default status that allow them to siphon money from all over the globe -including Europe

1. https://americanbusinesshistory.org/2022-updated-largest-com...

2. Silicon valley caught lightning in a bottle. Other American locales repeatedly tried and failed to replicate it - so it rules out American legislative attitudes as the vital ingredient.

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#88

Post by themafia »

aloha2436 wrote: post #59
themafia wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The federal government is. We'll see if the founders concept of a union of states is worth as much as it was proclaimed to be.

> We'll see if the founders concept of a union of states is worth as much as it was proclaimed to be. States can't issue their own currency, they're all going wherever the nation goes on this one.

> States can't issue their own currency

Of course they can. You're pointing out that federal law currently prohibits it? I already understood that to be the case when I made my point.

> they're all going wherever the nation goes on this one.

Unless they all collectively decide on a different course of action. The constitution was left amendable. It has been done several times already. A simple option is to repeal the 17th and to return to a state assembly controlled federal senate.

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#90

Post by epolanski »

aloha2436 wrote: post #26

America was in practice running an empire that collected tribute from the rest of planet earth in exchange for entries in a database denominated in a currency they controlled and that was accepted everywhere. Really the only way it could go wrong is putting it under the control of someone who doesn't understand the kayfabe...

And yet the current administration is fixated with trade balance (which conveniently ignores the most important US export that's not accounted: services).

Look at them countries sending food, cars, machinery for pieces of paper. They taking advantage of us!

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