Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

France pulls last gold held in US

mining.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 374 posts

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#131

Post by c7b »

throw0101c wrote: post #126
hypeatei wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

De Gaulle was ahead of his time. He was very skeptical of the control that the US had over Europe through NATO. He left the alliance to build an independent French nuclear program which is paying dividends today amid the current leadership situation in the US.

Certainly debatable. De Gaulle started this 'policy' in 1965 and it's mainly the current leadership situation that's been a problem—60 years later. So to a certain extent the policy in question was 'wrong' for decades. How "right" can you really consider them when it was a problem year after year, decade after decade: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Penny It reminds me of the folks that keep saying there will b…

In what sense was the policy wrong? Emphasizing independence when it comes to security doesn't strike me as self-evidently wrong. Curious to hear your arguments. "They were very happy about it 60 years later" alone isn't evidence of it being wrong.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#132

Post by coldtea »

mort96 wrote: post #62
coldtea wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As @somenameforme wrote: [] they sold their 'non-standard' (seems to be bars below the modern purity standards) US reserves, and replaced them with new reserves purchased elsewhere which are now stored in France. As the price of gold continued to rise as they did this, they ended up making a bunch of dinero while also centralizing their reserves. sounds like a gain to me.

A gain of $15b? That's roughly the value of 100 metric tons of gold, remarkably close to the 129 tons that the article says was moved... did they double the value of their gold?

That's an orthogonal matter (if the gain/loss was calculated correctly).

But they didn't just move gold bars around, is my point, and in what they did (sold, rebuy) there indeed was an opportunity to make a gain.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#133

Post by okanat »

ur-whale wrote: post #120
KingOfCoders wrote: post #52

Germany also needs to pull all gold. We have 1236t there.

> Germany also needs to pull all gold. We have 1236t there. They had better act fast, before an executive order prevents that from ever happening.

US also has gold reserves and investments in Germany. They can be seized.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#134

Post by AnimalMuppet »

mort96 wrote: post #82
PaywallBuster wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bought it once at X price, it's realized when you sell it, it's unrealized while "open" If they held it for 100 years and finally sold it, then profit/loss is realized now

But then they bought it again. They had 129 tons of gold, and now they still have 129 tons of gold. Where does the realised gains come from?

Let's say I bought a 100-ounce gold bar in 1965, when gold was $35/oz, for a total price of $3500. Let's say I sold it today at $4700/oz, for a total price of $470,000. That gives me a gain of $466,500.

And let's say that I regret it. I decide that I really want to hold some gold, so I take the $470,000 and buy another 100-ounce gold bar.

The situation was that I had a gold bar worth $470,000 with a taxable basis of $3500. Now the situation is that I have a gold bar worth $470,000 with a taxable basis of $470,000, and I owe the IRS taxes on $466,500 of capital gains.

TL;DR: Selling and re-buying the same asset gives you the accumulated gains, and resets the price basis.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#135

Post by Iulioh »

okanat wrote: post #128
ur-whale wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> De Gaulle initiated a systematic, aggressive policy where they converted USD into physical gold The dude was a visionary for many things, but I didn't know about this. Borderline prescient. What a guy.

Just like the majority of the classical economists and policymakers, you would call him a blithering idiot and overzealous nationalist two decades ago. It was thought that this kind of behavior caused world-wars. I mean it did cause them. It is just we're speed running the next one that changed the narrative.

This behavior is economically inefficient, that's why it's criticized. And it's undeniable

But the point is that "economical efficiency" is not the only metric that matters, stability and power do not come cheap.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#136

Post by inglor_cz »

cloudbonsai wrote: post #111
mort96 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the logic that it's "unrealised" while the gold is stored in the US but becomes "realised" once it is stored in Paris? Why?

Bank of France "transported" their reserve by selling the gold held in New York, and subsequently buying the same amount in European market. They opted to do so because it's just more efficient. It takes a lot of efforts to physically move 129 tonnes of gold after all. And as a side effect of this relocation project, they ended up recording a capital gain. It's nothing-burger.

The transport would likely be quite expensive as well. Lots of armed people needed to move gold around, plus special vehicles.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#137

Post by [deleted] »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #41
cladopa wrote: post #25

This is not gain at all. At least in theory: You own some tons of gold at the start of the process, you have the same tons of gold at the end of the process. The only real gain is that you have gold in the US custody and the US can be tempted to just use it without telling you anything. In other words, you had "paper gold" or "virtual gold" that the US can confiscate anytime, for example after invading Greenland, bla…

From the full press release: "In 2025 and at the start of 2026, while the volume of gold reserves remained unchanged, the Banque de France had to align a residual portion (5%) with technical guidelines, resulting in a significant realised currency gain. This exceptional foreign exchange income totalled EUR 11 billion for 2025." -- the keyword here likely being "realized"

[deleted]

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#138

Post by inglor_cz »

Havoc wrote: post #91
KingOfCoders wrote: post #52

Germany also needs to pull all gold. We have 1236t there.

With the way the US is going that might just end up in a gold trump statue instead

But that statue would rotate to face the sun!

If Turkmenistan can have it, why not the US?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrality_Monument

(Though it no longer rotates.)

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#140

Post by raincole »

mort96 wrote: post #76
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the full press release: "In 2025 and at the start of 2026, while the volume of gold reserves remained unchanged, the Banque de France had to align a residual portion (5%) with technical guidelines, resulting in a significant realised currency gain. This exceptional foreign exchange income totalled EUR 11 billion for 2025." -- the keyword here likely being "realized"

Is the logic that it's "unrealised" while the gold is stored in the US but becomes "realised" once it is stored in Paris? Why?

If you buy $100,000 of RAM and just hoard them, and a shortage happens, you won't update their value according to their market price, until you sell them.

That's it. It has nothing to do with whether your RAM is stored in New York or Paris.

Post reply on HN