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Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

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Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#121

Post by bc569a80a344f9c »

mdavid626 wrote: post #108
SuperShibe wrote: post #87

The Germans in this article all appear to be aligned to either BSW (populist far-left, pro-Russia, anti-US) or AfD (populist far-right, pro-Russia). BSW wasn't even elected into the parliament and AfD, while being part of the parliament, has virtually no power due to not being part of the government coalition and all other parties sharing an informal agreement to not pass legislations with the help of AfD. What I'm t…

This is a very skewed view of the political landscape. Would be nice to forget this pro/anti Russia narrative. Please also note that AfD has become the strongest party in Germany. Sure, firewalled, but question is, for how long.

> Please also note that AfD has become the strongest party in Germany

It has not. They got 20% in the last Bundestag election, compared to 28.4% for CDU. Unless they get significantly stronger it seems very unlikely that anyone wants to be in a coalition with them on the short or medium horizon.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#122

Post by nforgerit »

SuperShibe wrote: post #87

The Germans in this article all appear to be aligned to either BSW (populist far-left, pro-Russia, anti-US) or AfD (populist far-right, pro-Russia). BSW wasn't even elected into the parliament and AfD, while being part of the parliament, has virtually no power due to not being part of the government coalition and all other parties sharing an informal agreement to not pass legislations with the help of AfD. What I'm t…

This is a very superficial perspective. Disclaimer: I disdain both BSW and Afd.

You're basically falling into "the populist trap" in which they take a fact or something true and wrap it with a lot of BS and conspiracy theories. If you disregard the true core "just because it's from the wrong party" you give them political lever. We've seen that playbook working out for 10+ years.

De Masi did a great job as a financial expert in a parliamentary group, highly regarded by people over the whole political spectrum. I don't understand why he joined BSW but that doesn't weaken his point here.

And since we're already publicly discussing Trump blackmailing us with decommissioning US IT-Services without further notice, it is exactly right to talk about assets like gold being stored on US soil.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#123

Post by yread »

Invictus0 wrote: post #42
pixelpoet wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was famously answered by Archimedes in his Eureka moment: https://www.longlongtimeago.com/once-upon-a-time/great-disco...

That's a children's parable. You can easily defeat the test by using two metals, one denser than gold and one lighter, whose combination matches the density of gold, and then putting a veneer of gold on top of it.

Only tungsten is cheaper and heavier than gold and it's tricky to work with

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#124

Post by kasey_junk »

cantor_S_drug wrote: post #88
kasey_junk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do. Countries frequently store gold with trading partners or allies. Germany for instance has extensive foreign gold reserves.

But then the next question is why aren't those used as settlements mechanism?

They are? The issue here is simply that the country thinks there is an imbalance. They can request a in country transfer and do, but in this case it’s not enough.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#125

Post by timcobb »

nforgerit wrote: post #122
SuperShibe wrote: post #87

The Germans in this article all appear to be aligned to either BSW (populist far-left, pro-Russia, anti-US) or AfD (populist far-right, pro-Russia). BSW wasn't even elected into the parliament and AfD, while being part of the parliament, has virtually no power due to not being part of the government coalition and all other parties sharing an informal agreement to not pass legislations with the help of AfD. What I'm t…

This is a very superficial perspective. Disclaimer: I disdain both BSW and Afd. You're basically falling into "the populist trap" in which they take a fact or something true and wrap it with a lot of BS and conspiracy theories. If you disregard the true core "just because it's from the wrong party" you give them political lever. We've seen that playbook working out for 10+ years. De Masi did a great job as a financia…

> "just because it's from the wrong party"

Extremists should never be ignored, especially in unstable times, but mentioning that these people are currently not in power and aren't even in the parliament is good context.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#126

Post by weberer »

signaturefish wrote: post #55
amelius wrote: post #6

Question, how do you test if a bar of gold is really 100% gold without deforming it?

On the individual scale, something like a Sigma Metalytics resistivity analyser (passes an electric field through the sample, checks to see if resistivity, conductivity, weight or size all match up to what you'd expect from a homogeneous gold sample of that size or weight). On the commercial scale, an XRF spectrometer. Both methods are completely non-destructive, and highly accurate (the XRF more so). (the two scales…

They have handheld XRF analyzers nowadays. They cost around $20k.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#127

Post by jxjnskkzxxhx »

scrlk wrote: post #118

The TradFi version of "not your keys, not your crypto".

Damn. I despise crypto, but even I have to admit that there's some power behind this comment. Not because crypto isn't shit, which it is, but because letting someone else hold your gold is stupid. As stupid as letting someone else have your crypto keys. Bravo.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#129

Post by mrweasel »

mklarmann wrote: post #36

IMO the US should have never been trusted, but maybe the argument that this a Trump issue creates critical mass to move this forward. There is enough incentive for the US to not be transparent about the actual gold that is left.

> US should have never been trusted

Depends on when gold was shipped to the US. For the better part of the 20th century there was absolutely no reason for most of it's friends and allies to not trust the US. Especially if you deposited your gold with the US around the world wars or any time before the mid 60s really.

Re: Germany and Italy pressed to bring $245B of gold home from US

#130

Post by seviu »

samus wrote: post #85
alphazard wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold has numerous applications. Bitcoin's only application is inserting information in an append only ledger. It's among the most durable ledgers, but also the most expensive and slowest to insert into.

Gold doesn't derive its value from those applications. It is valuable for the same reason as Bitcoin is: I can't create it out of thin air to screw you over when I settle a transaction.

Settling a transaction might be in this case the ship with the gold sinking in the ocean.

This is one of the primary reasons Bitcoin exists. As long as I can remember the seed phrase it’s always with me. And main reason why I would rather have bitcoin than gold.

Transporting all that gold will be a tad more difficult though. I wish they luck though.

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