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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

#131

Post by regularization »

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…

You're correct this does not matter this year. But in the 2013 German election, AFD got no seats, and now it has the second most seats. BSW was not around in the 2021 election, they got about 5% of the vote but Die Linke managed not to lose their vote to BSW. BSW probably picked up voters who would have gone to either AFD or Die Linke (kind of like voters in the early 1930s who switched between the KPD and NSDAP).

This is the future of European, and US elections. Undermining Russia is important to the rulers of Europe and the US, but not as much to workers and voters. You can see the sea change with Trump in office and socialist candidates like Bernie, who is getting huge crowds in Idaho and Oklahoma, or AOC and Zohran in New York. Young people can't afford houses, even programmers are having trouble since the 2022 layoffs - can you imagine the Amazin RTO in Seattle mandate would be possible in 2021? Wealth inequality leads to disruption, and political parties are made to appeal to the masses - either fascist or socialist. The political tendencies arising are no anomaly.

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

#132

Post by sharpshadow »

bc569a80a344f9c wrote: post #121
mdavid626 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the latest polls they surpassed the CDU. It was the moment when Merz announced 1 Trillion money rain after campaign to not make new debts.

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

#133

Post by jxjnskkzxxhx »

johncole wrote: post #128

[flagged]

Please don't do this.

If it's here it's because enough people find it interesting. This shouldn't be surprising, and there's a lot of content about how money works that finds it way into HN.

If you don't like it just downvote and move on.

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

#134

Post by myrmidon »

patrickk wrote: post #93

> A secret report by Germany’s Federal Audit Office leaked to the public last week states that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York refuses to allow Bundebank staff to even view the gold, triggering suspicions that the vaults are empty as well as calls for the gold to be shipped back to Berlin. > The Fed implements stringent security controls, and refuses even Bundesbank staff full access to the German gold hoard. A…

Note that Germany already finished bringing back 300 tons of gold from NYC and about the same amount from Paris in 2016, so this is a bit out of date (that whole transfer was completed ahead of schedule, which indicates, in hindsight, that probably not all the German gold in NYC was missing completely in 2011 :P).

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

#135

Post by Nifty3929 »

I think people greatly overestimate the importance of gold. Gold cannot feed your people, or win a war or cure a disease. And in a crisis likely won't be useful for buying things that do.

Gold is maybe just a bit better than fiat currency. Even in terms of inflation, what would happen to the market value of gold (not in Dollar terms, but in terms of what it can buy) if the government decided to spend down $200B in gold to buy stuff with?

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

#136

Post by Havoc »

Honestly at this stage all countries should pull their gold.

The system was somewhat reasonable when the US acted more or less benevolent, but clearly when we're in a space where the US threatens to invade allies then they clearly are no longer trustworthy

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

#137

Post by eqvinox »

jamil7 wrote: post #102
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…

I thought Wagenknecht had somewhat distanced herself from pro-kremlin positions she and parts of Die Linke previously held? She's still pretty staunchly anti-NATO, though. I think her German-nationalist positions kind of overlap with positions that benefit Russia like resuming gas supplies to drop energy prices and heating costs.

Other way around, Wagenknecht is the one who didn't distance herself from the Kremlin and forked off her own party, BSW, which finally enabled Die Linke to get at least some distance from the Kremlin. (This schism was fracturing that party so hard…)

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

#139

Post by eqvinox »

sharpshadow wrote: post #132
bc569a80a344f9c wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In the latest polls they surpassed the CDU. It was the moment when Merz announced 1 Trillion money rain after campaign to not make new debts.

Polls != 'strongest' party. You need actual power for that latter label. Which is not far off for the AfD, but really not there right now.

If/when the coalition starts infighting, then…

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

#140

Post by stogot »

bboygravity wrote: post #110
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…

That's all fine and dandy, but also IMO it's entirely possible that the US cannot deliver their gold if these countries (and/or others) wanted it back. Just look at what happened when Venezuela wanted their gold back. It took ages and that was a relatively tiny amount. It's extremely naive for many EU countries to still believe that they "have" "their" gold stored in the US. And even more naive to not try and get it…

“Sell” it to a third country (Switzerland) who provides a certificate of deposit in a vault?
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