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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

#141

Post by bc569a80a344f9c »

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.

https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/

No, they haven't. Not a single poll has them surpassing the CDU.

I genuinely don't understand why you'd lie about something like that. It's trivial to look it up.

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

#142

Post by kasey_junk »

reactordev wrote: post #71
kasey_junk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gold in question is physical gold. Almost certainly standardized bars.

Considering the US only has 8,000 tonnes of gold total, this is going to be interesting. I don’t think their gold is just sitting in a closet in manhattan.

That 8000 tonnes number is how much gold the US owns themselves. Not gold held for foreign governments.

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

#143

Post by cma »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #135

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 go…

In a regional crisis it will

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

#144

Post by Nifty3929 »

jxjnskkzxxhx wrote: post #90

The US has a history of pulling this kind of stuff on its allies. To mind comes pulling out of Breton Woods. To those not aware, at some point in the past the US told the world: the dollar is as good as gold, you can convert it at any time you want, pinky promise. Later: lol joking, I'm keeping the gold, enjoy your dollars. I wonder what it says about Europe that its leaders are still falling for these rugpulls. That…

Probably because, with full knowledge and awareness of the history you describe - they still feel their gold is safer in NY than in their own country. Europe and it's governments have history too.

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

#146

Post by Aldipower »

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…

As it is correct, that they are virtually not in power, framing them as pro-russia is some sort of false flag. Just because they are not anti-russia, like every other party, does not automatically mean that they are pro-russia. AfD and BSW together got more then 25% of all votes. So, you are correct, they virtually are not in power, but they have some real power just by being there. This HN post here is the best example for this mechanism.

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

#147

Post by dontlaugh »

petre wrote: post #89
bluecalm wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From purely incentive based analysis I would bet on Ukraine/Poland as well. I am Polish and the news was received very warmly here by both citizens and government officials.

The news of the Nordstream bombings was received warmly in most of Central and Eastern Europe, not just Poland. The men and women who carried out the operation are heroes.

I don’t think that’s true. I know people in many Eastern European countries and the general opinion was dismay at a US proxy stoking war.

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

#148

Post by Nifty3929 »

cma wrote: post #143
Nifty3929 wrote: post #135

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 go…

In a regional crisis it will

How? This issue is never money - it's always availability and logistics. In a regional crisis, what would you do with the gold? Is there anything to buy from outside the region? If so, how would you get it in? And does gold really help here, or would the other countries give it to you or lend it to you anyway?

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

#149

Post by seydor »

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #60
amarcheschi wrote: post #7

I have no idea of the strategy behind it, but for some reasons italy has a lot of gold despite not buying it since a few decades https://www.bancaditalia.it/compiti/riserve-portafoglio-risc...

A huge pile of gold in a secure location allows a government to operate in exile essentially forever without creating substantial debts for the home nation. It's not just "Italy's gold", it's "Contemporary Italy's gold". Norway & the Netherlands moved their gold right before the Nazi invasions in the 40's, and were able to continue operating in exile as a result. Taiwan was established on the back of this tactic too,…

they could just buy bitcoin.

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

#150

Post by voxic11 »

tzs wrote: post #80
Invictus0 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That wouldn’t work in Archimedes’ time because gold was the densest metal available then. It could be done now but most of the candidate elements cost more than gold. Uranium looks feasible if the gold veneer will block the radiation which otherwise might tip off the recipient.

Tungsten has almost the same density as gold and costs way less.

19.283 g/cm3 vs 19.254 g/cm3

https://www.metal.com/en/markets/24

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