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The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

bbc.com

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Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#121

Post by TMWNN »

joakleaf wrote: post #107
derelicta wrote: post #24

Can't wait for the CNN headlines: "DANES CHEER AS TYRAN PRIME MINISTER CAPTURED", "DANES WELCOME FOREIGN LIBERATORS", "DANISH ECONOMY TO BOOM WITH FREE MARKETS REFORMS"

This doesn't really align with CNN's view, but may apply to another even more popular US news channel that seems to be much more aligned with the current administration... Greenland and Denmark are not the same. Greenland is a self-governed territory under the Kingdom of Denmark. The US administration wishes to take over Greenland from Denmark completely. So you should replace your headlines with "Greenland" and "Gre…

>Greenland currently receives significant support (about $10000-15000 per capita yearly) from Denmark. So it is not clear how the country would run without that.

Greenland absolutely positively cannot run without outside subsidy. Pacific islands (barely) function as independent countries because their tiny populations are commensurate with their small areas. Greenland's 50,000 people live on an island three times the size of Texas.

Currently that subsidy comes in the form of €600 million in annual funds from Copenhagen. Now Washington has emerged as a potential outbidder.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#122

Post by spiderfarmer »

mothballed wrote: post #102
Y-bar wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denmark sent about 4,3 Billion Danish Krona to Greenland last year, this is about 0.6% of Denmark's budget. For a nation that made a surplus of about 130 Billion in 2025 it does not seem like a something Danes in general want or need to shitcan.

Most people in Greenland want Independence from Denmark. They consider themselves foreigners to the country and yet devour 0.6% of their surplus. IMO it is foolish both for USA and Denmark to take them. Cut them loose as they desire and let them trade their minerals which they will surely do as soon as they realize their free lunch is gone. You would still get the thing you want it for, the greenlander are happy they…

It's clearly your own opinion, but somehow you comment like you're representing Denmark here.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#123

Post by spiderfarmer »

TMWNN wrote: post #113
TrackerFF wrote: post #85

My prediction of how a hostile takeover would work out - i.e. all US offers to purchase Greenland are flat rejected: 0. USA invades Greenland by shipping thousands of troops there, Denmark does the same. I don't believe there will be any direct conflict, but rather that US simply declares they now control Greenland. 1. Denmark invokes a number of NATO articles, immediately. 2. NATO crisis, all members meet in hopes t…

>6. Congress does not authorize Trumps use of military, and Trump must withdraw within 90 days. No US president, regardless of party, has ever recognized the constitutionality of the War Powers Act. When a president sends reports to Congress of the sort the act mandates, the report typically includes a disclaimer stating as much. >If US economy crashes Any European attempt to "crash" the US economy would result in wo…

> Any European attempt to "crash" the US economy would result in worse results for Europe.

So what? We'll recover.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#124

Post by madspindel »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #79
madspindel wrote: post #19

As a Swede I must confess I don't know much about Greenland. But if Denmark goes all-in on Greenland, you can bet the other Nordic countries will be involved too. Not sure how this will play out. Really strange situation and as I said I don't even know how much Denmark cares about Greenland. Any Danes here that can tell us more?

What do you mean by all-in? Military action?

Yes. Something like moving parts of the Nordic Air Force closer to Greenland (maybe Iceland, or even Greenland itself?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpGhd90y-BE

That would deter even the United States, I believe. The problem I see if it's worth it. As I said, as a Swede I don't really care about Greenland, but Denmark is part of the Nordic Family.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#125

Post by mothballed »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #122
mothballed wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people in Greenland want Independence from Denmark. They consider themselves foreigners to the country and yet devour 0.6% of their surplus. IMO it is foolish both for USA and Denmark to take them. Cut them loose as they desire and let them trade their minerals which they will surely do as soon as they realize their free lunch is gone. You would still get the thing you want it for, the greenlander are happy they…

It's clearly your own opinion, but somehow you comment like you're representing Denmark here.

Clearly the only people not being represented are Greenlanders since Danes generally see Greenlanders as family to be respected and Greenlanders want to be gone, yet this hasn't happened.

This is basically a fight between government of Greenland, government of Denmark, and government of USA all acting generally against the wishes of their own populace. And somehow the dumbest of all options, the USA acquiring them, seems to be one of the more likely scenarios that actually ends up happening.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#126

Post by hopelite »

krapp wrote: post #99
sensanaty wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I'll even accept 1 single week without any historic events...

We've got two more years of this at least, buckle in.

It all hinges on the midterms. Things will become clearer as to how they are going in about the next 6 months or so. There is a real chance that Trump’s faction may have finally caused to much damage for even his base. But never underestimate the impulse for knee-jerk voting or the opposition’s capacity to save its enemy from its own mistakes.

We will see how much that holds this midterm. Trump has wrecked so many things though, it’s hard to tell how things will go, cling on out of desperation or throw him overboard to the sharks?

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#127

Post by verzali »

bsenftner wrote: post #65
throwaway132448 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All "free market" ideals require no/low barriers to entry in order for the market to be "self regulating". Said absence of barriers to entry almost never exists, hence the idea of completely free markets is completely naive - you need regulation. Markets also cannot account for externalities. If those externalities are something you care about (e.g. the environment you live in) - you need regulation. Economies of sca…

It more basic than that, it is what used to be considered common sense. The United States has screwed basic education, effective communications is not even taught - the seed of common sense, and has been producing intellectually crippled wage slaves for that last 40+ years. It's going to require a culture revolution to pull out of this nose civilization-wide dive, and that revolution is not going to happen in the USA…

I have really noticed that over the past year or two. A worrying number of Americans seem to lack even basic knowledge of the world outside America or even have the ability to think seriously about the long term consequences of decisions. That's not saying all Americans are this way - far from it - but it does seem that a critical mass has been reached. Things like Trump are only symptoms of this, and I cannot see any realistic way the situation can be salvaged.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#128

Post by TrackerFF »

TMWNN wrote: post #113
TrackerFF wrote: post #85

My prediction of how a hostile takeover would work out - i.e. all US offers to purchase Greenland are flat rejected: 0. USA invades Greenland by shipping thousands of troops there, Denmark does the same. I don't believe there will be any direct conflict, but rather that US simply declares they now control Greenland. 1. Denmark invokes a number of NATO articles, immediately. 2. NATO crisis, all members meet in hopes t…

>6. Congress does not authorize Trumps use of military, and Trump must withdraw within 90 days. No US president, regardless of party, has ever recognized the constitutionality of the War Powers Act. When a president sends reports to Congress of the sort the act mandates, the report typically includes a disclaimer stating as much. >If US economy crashes Any European attempt to "crash" the US economy would result in wo…

The US stock market is being carried by tech companies. Any large-scale sanctions against Europe would hit said tech firms hard, for no other reason than that they need all the customers they can get. Crashing the stock market could in turn induce panic, which in the end will reflect poorly on the president.

The whole goal of such a (economic) war would be to make US senators and congressmen take a stand, and decide if enough is enough. Americans vote with their pocketbooks. Just introducing extra tariffs on specific industries and companies in specific states can be politically devastating. Now imagine full-blown sanctions.

Not to mention that US competition will happily step up to take their lunch, while all this going on. China will instantly jump on that opportunity. US firms will also recognize that sanctions on things like tech will drive innovation in Europe to fill that void, in tandem with what China and others have to offer.

Will both recover? Yes, probably. But hopefully Trump will be out, as that will be the main objective.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#129

Post by verzali »

benrutter wrote: post #45
fny wrote: post #8

There are a few things that confuse me about this potential acquisition: 1. You won't govern it. Greenland has it's own Self-Government Act. [0] 2. You won't own the land. Almost all land is owned by the State. [1] 3. The Danes have no special land ownership rights. [2] 4. Land use rights, however, are granted for different activities (fishing, mining) subject to approval. [3] I'd imagine none of this changes under a…

> unless of course the US also plans to bulldoze Greenland's sovereignty. It's probably not helpful for me to speculate, but surely this? If the US is truly prepared to invade another ally's territory for material gain, I'd assume the idea that they'd honor other existing laws is unlikely.

I don't see how it would actually work in practice. Can Trump really destroy Greenland's democracy via executive order? Surely Congress or the courts would have something to say about it? And even if not, how are you going to deal with all the people there? If Trump is ruling Greenland via executive order, then he is just a dictator, what happens to the people? It would end up as a long running sore and a terrible blemish on America's reputation.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#130

Post by maxerickson »

energy123 wrote: post #59
hliyan wrote: post #13

The events of the past 12 months, culminating in Venezuela and now Greenland, has made me reevaluate a lot of my beliefs about unimpeded competition between free agents (i.e. a free market) leading to the best and most peaceful outcomes. Clearly, a few participants becoming disproportionately powerful is a failure mode. The way I've tried to reconcile my beliefs with what are clearly contradictory observations in the…

I've arrived at the opposite conclusion. The root cause of conflict is decentralized power, which is the prediction of realism. Conflict occurs because of security competition, but security competition is only possible when powers are equally matched and trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma dynamic. You can sense check this by running through various historic eras. Consider the eras before any nation states, when power wa…

In the last 100 years, we managed to prove that cooperation beats competition.

Of course we do have competition, but where it has worked the best, it has been done in the context of cooperation, economic trade that follows norms and laws.

Too bad we gave stupid people power.

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