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Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

abc.net.au

231–240 of 282 posts

Re: Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

#231
post #88
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

England is definitely a European country. I'm tired of people constantly making this political abuse of language of conflating "the EU" with "Europe". (And yes, saying "America" for "US of A" annoys me too. First step towards losing an imperialist state of mind is letting people from Canada and Brazil be in America).

One of the smart moves the EU has performed is to bring all ideas of Europeanness and European identity and Europe as a continent under its exclusive umbrella. Even places like Switzerland are somehow now defined by their exclusion when you couldn’t get a more European country slap bang in the centre of the continent. Britain has always been an outlier due to being an island hanging off the edge, and is now a pariah…

> One of the smart moves the EU has performed is to bring all ideas of Europeanness and European identity and Europe as a continent under its exclusive umbrella.

But only the most imbecille people have fallen for that. Nobody with any kind of sense or basic knowledge considers EU to be Europe or vice versa.

> Britain has always been an outlier due to being an island hanging off the edge, and is now a pariah and traitor state which will also be defined by abandonment and disloyalty to the EU project of total integration.

Just like they were last time, but they won that war in the end.

Re: Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

#232
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or until you don't need to buy oil at all. China has reduced its consumption by 1.5M barrels/day this year alone.

To nitpick, much of that is probably due to halting refining for export and drawing down reserves. But of course the point stands that they are rapidly electrifying and expanding renewable generation.

Oil will only become more and more volatile. The supply chain is both complex and fragile to geopolitical nonsense. China is betting on stability and reliability, environmental concerns is just a bonus.

Re: Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

#233
post #92

For those seeking a more level-headed view, the Fed reports on foreign-owned gold monthly. Going back a couple of decades: Month Book value ($M) Tonnes July 2006 8,967 6,606 July 2011 8,412 6,197 July 2016 7,883 5,807 July 2021 7,794 5,742 July 2026 7,812 5,755 The linked report is talking about a change of 1.5% from the latest-reported total amount in tonnes.

Bruh, this is not about the amount of gold involved.

Re: Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

#234

The funny thing is that with $40T of public dept US is basically taking money from other countries (in exchange for a pice of paper saying IOU) and then using that money to force these countries to do what’s in US best interests (real or perceived). And the bigger that pile of debt is the more every government is invested in us not going bankrupt, hence the leverage just gets stronger. US is basically a private equit…

The US isn’t taking money from other countries - you clearly don’t understand the scam!

We give money to Israel, Ukraine, and everyone else - we print and print and print and a few people close to the action take some off the top.

That’s it. Maybe some rich kids get their university debt wiped clean (not community college though).

The US and even local governments within have become corrupted to the core - they are like ATMs and havens of various types for the emerging international wealth class.

That class may very well want to promote your idea since the best seat at the table right now is China.

Now everyone wants to be owed by the US à la China, it’s been great for international business. Mexico is the heir to that throne more than Europe - which doesn’t produce anything the world wants.

Re: Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that it’s on shelves in a shared vault and you relabel who owns that shelf/slot/bin.

I wonder if anyone checks the gold. You could end up with the problem Amazon had, where people were inserting fake items into the supply chain and then it was just getting mixed into the real products and nobody could tell who was doing the fraud. Because instead of treating each item as an individual thing, they were pooling everything with other items of the same type. So if I send in a brick and say it’s an iPhone…

There have been rumours like this about the US gold storage for decades.

Its audits only look at a tiny percentage of the holdings at a time, any kind of weighing or purity inspection is the exception rather than the rule, and third-party auditors or observers are not welcome. They basically look at a handful of bars, see that the seals on the other vaults are intact, and extrapolate that all the gold is perfectly fine.

In other words: the US could be pulling the fraud of the century here, and we'd never find out. But a full audit would be extremely expensive, there's no sign that there's any kind of foul play, and other countries are doing more-or-less the same.

And even if a country does notice that something is off with their US holdings, there's plenty of reason to keep it quiet and just play along.

Re: Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the problem? We took nationalist names (Mexico, Ontario) and used the hemisphere appropriate term. If anything we’re more culturally progressive for doing it. See? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575360 Were not Americans, we are United Statesians!

Lake Ontario wasn't a "nationalist" name. It's an anglicised version of the Wyandot name for the lake. The Canadian province is named after the lake, not the other way around. Don't be a ghoul.

Either way, America is more inclusive. Don’t be a ghoul

Re: Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bombing a girl's school in Iran looks like a PR master stroke by comparison. Iran killed more than 30,000 of its own people for peacefully protesting and continues to hang its own citizens to this day. They (along with Hamas, Hezbollah, and more) intentionally set up military assets next to civilian facilities because they know we don’t intentionally strike civilian facilities and they tell you that themselves. Ira…

The entire leadership of the IRGC can burn in hell as far as I am concerned. But that does not mean that launching an assault on Iran at Netanyahu's bidding was a smart move. Especially if it turned out that US arsenals were half empty. This is what you get when no one can tell "no" to the President and survive in their function. It is not clear to me yet how this entire Iran thing is going to finish. Now the bet see…

> But that does not mean that launching an assault on Iran at Netanyahu's bidding was a smart move.

We didn’t launch a war based on Netanyahu’s bidding. This is a nonsensical mischaracterization of the war and belittles the general strategic situation.

> Now the bet seems to be on strangling their economy, which may not even work, but will probably cause some serious suffering of the same people who already suffer under a gallows-happy totalitarian government.

Same can be said for Russia

Re: Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bombing a girl's school in Iran looks like a PR master stroke by comparison. Iran killed more than 30,000 of its own people for peacefully protesting and continues to hang its own citizens to this day. They (along with Hamas, Hezbollah, and more) intentionally set up military assets next to civilian facilities because they know we don’t intentionally strike civilian facilities and they tell you that themselves. Ira…

Yes iran is a murderous regime, but thats not a get out of jail free for either failing to do logistics, plan for the enemy you face, or failing to properly vet your targets in a war of choice. > And no, Trump can’t and isn’t dumb enough to start seizing assets of another country. I mean Maduro would like a word. He literally kidnapped a world leader to gain access to a country's oil system. Then there is the agitati…

> Yes iran is a murderous regime, but thats not a get out of jail free for either failing to do logistics, plan for the enemy you face, or failing to properly vet your targets in a war of choice.

Sure, but it’s brought up as though the US is going around arbitrarily bombing children and schools and it’s simply false. In wars, mistakes happen. In the case of the US it was a mistake and we owned up to it on someways (we should do more, IMO) but Iran is doing much worse and we should focus on that primarily. I didn’t bring Iran up here, someone else did, so I can only respond to their characterizations by informing them how they are incorrect.

> I mean Maduro would like a word. He literally kidnapped a world leader to gain access to a country's oil system.

He’s a criminal destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and the results of his and Hugo Chavez’s policies resulted in an exodus of around 1/3rd of the Venezuelan population. Our actions were good there and will be good in the long term. Plus he was helping Russia evade American and European sanctions. That alone is good enough justification to arrest him.

> Then there is the agitation, visits and posturing to invade an ally's fucking land. Its not that difficult to imagine trump confiscating "foreign gold" to even up the "trade deficit". There are no effective controls on trump's actions.

We would lose far more than a whatever the Dutch gold is worth and it’s also an insignificant amount of money so there’s no reason for that to happen. You’re whipping yourself up into psychosis around Donald Trump which is clouding your judgment.

> Besent is doing a good job ruining that trying to shout at the bond market, and pissing about with the Yen.

Read more about European bonds then. If this is your criticism it applies more to France, UK, &c.

Re: Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

#239
post #50
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest chunk is in the Netherlands, but you want your gold also in other countries, so that you can still access is (and don't loose it) in case of an invasion. Hence almost half is in North America, a completely different (and (somewhat) allied) continent. It's also easier to sell in certain markets, such as London.

Not just so that you don't lose it in case of an invasion, but it is proof that you would be willing to help out the host country in the case they were invaded. Also, that you would not invade them . In the olden days, the local lords would marry their children together, to create familial groups and ensure that for the forseeable future the local areas would not have a conflict. Modern democracies don't have such va…

The United States and Canada must have enjoyed that feeling of safety, knowing that the Netherlands would not invade them. And of course, if someone were to invade the United States (or Canada), knowing that the mighty Netherlands would come to their help would be immensely reassuring.

Re: Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t that necessarily mean that if the US keeps making enemies of allies, then the premium required for these countries to give US money would be higher? Sure, I’ll lend you some, but I don’t trust you that much, you’ll have to pay me more.

Go further with your reasoning... Why would anyone lend the US more...

> Go further with your reasoning... Why would anyone lend the US more...

Because if you don't, you are abducted or killed or "regime changed" or sanctioned to famine-level poverty - all for "freedom & democracy". Kindly remember that the Corporate States of America has the world's most powerful military... well I suppose it is nowadays in the top #3.

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