Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset • Hacker News Board

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#171

Post by dannyfritz07 » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 11:46 AM UTC

ferfumarma wrote: post #125

neonstatic wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think pinning this on one guy is a gross oversimplification driven by personal dislike for that guy. In my opinion larger forces are at play. I don't mean it in a conspiratorial way; simply put, the structure of global trade, economy, military power, etc. have shifted to such a degree, that this process has become inevitable.

The Clinton administration ran a budget surplus

He ran a surplus by (In Bill Clinton's own words) "ending welfare as we know it". This was his description of the Personal Responsibility Act he signed. That attack on labor and bolstering of the financial markets was a huge contributor to our economic disasters. Keynesian was never meant to be a permanent solution to a growing capitalism system. And the Hayekian system we have now is just pillaging by neoliberals.

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#172

Post by tsoukase » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 11:47 AM UTC

Since a lot of time the US economy and finance are under stress. Not panic but stress. And this makes the leaders stressful too, so they take defensive and hostile actions, most lately by the Trump's government. The world will neither wait nor allow the US to remain leader, especially with non standard ways. The world changes to a tri-pole with satellite nodes. Gold price is just a variable in the system and is dependent of the global state.

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#173

Post by throw0101c » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 11:48 AM UTC

hax0ron3 wrote: post #75

Larrikin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that?

Illegal immigration brings masses of people from more corrupt, disordered, and perhaps lower average intelligence societies into the US in conditions that make it hard for even the ones who are capable of assimilation to assimilate. It also constitutes a massive flouting of the law for the benefit of business, which sets a bad precedent and lowers public trust in institutions. It also contributes to rising racial ten…

> Illegal immigration brings masses of people from more corrupt, disordered […]

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." — Donald Trump, June 16, 2015

* https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-f...

Never mind that illegal/undocumented immigrants have lower crime and incarceration rates than native-born Americans:

* https://www.cato.org/blog/why-do-illegal-immigrants-have-low...

* https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014704117

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#174

Post by AnimalMuppet » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 11:57 AM UTC

bijowo1676 wrote: post #45

andsoitis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gold has always been stable, because it is physically limited. Incorrect. Physical scarcity matters, but it’s not the main driver. Gold’s price is far more sensitive to interest rates, dollar strength, sentiment and fear, speculative flows. The stability it’s historically shown was mostly the result of fixed monetary systems, and those are long gone.

its because you are measuring stable Gold in volatile fiat which is being printed every day depending on the factors you mentioned (interest rates, expectations of future growth, sentiment etc). because you are getting paycheck in fiat, you are psychologically programmed to think of fiat as something stable, and Gold as volatile. while in reality prices expressed in Gold ounces remained fairly stable for example: htt…

> its because you are measuring stable Gold in volatile fiat

You're defining gold to be stable, and fiat to be volatile. Well, fiat is volatile, but that doesn't make gold stable.

Gold (measured in dollars) nearly doubled over the last year. Does that mean that the dollar is worth only half what it was a year ago? No, it doesn't. (There's been some inflation, but not nearly 100%.)

Gold is down 10% since January 28th. Does that mean that the dollar is worth 10% more than it was on January 28th? No, it doesn't.

Gold is not as stable as you claim it is.

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#175

Post by AnimalMuppet » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 11:59 AM UTC

hdgvhicv wrote: post #122

logicchains wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Incorrect. Physical scarcity matters, but it’s not the main driver. Gold’s price is far more sensitive to interest rates, dollar strength, sentiment and fear, speculative flows. Those are only relevant on a shorter timescale; on a long timescale gold's held its value extremely well. The price of a loaf of bread in gold now is still similar to what it was in the Roman Empire 2000 years ago.

So you’d be far worse off if you had put your savings in gold than in fiat currency based investments Barely keeping up with inflation is not the win you think it is.

For certain periods of time, not losing to inflation is a major win. The more people think that we're headed into such a period, the more they reach for gold.

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#176

Post by Fricken » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 12:02 PM UTC

rapnie wrote: post #167

expedition32 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is politics. Which makes people who want to avoid it look delusional. As for polarization that's been the modus operandi in my country for at least 500 years. Everyone hates everyone but the alternative was the French, English or Spanish so what can you do? Turns out you actually really don't need to love your neighbour.

> Everything is politics. This is mentioned often, but is also such a broad generalization that it is not constructive in any meaningful way. If everything is politics, then it can be eliminated from both sides of the equation. Focus on real and immediate problems at hand and providing concrete solutions need not have "politics" label slapped onto it by default, esp. where the ideological infighting this attracts com…

This is just HN. We're explicitly not productive or constructive. We're not solving the world's problems. We're just shooting the shit. This is a forum for wasting time. I guess it wouldn't be HN without the delusions of self-importance.

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#177

Post by somenameforme » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 12:22 PM UTC

vasco wrote: post #68

somenameforme wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're seeing the result of something that's been decades in the making. You can see a simple table of dollar reserves here. [1] They've been consistently falling year over year for the past 27 years. And it's not like 1999 was anything particular. Rather the uptake leading up to 1999 as a peak was a result of shenanigans that happened in 1971 [2]. That's when the USD became completely unbacked by anything, enabling…

How can you reconcile the rest of your comment with: > That had short to mid-term positive impacts and long-term catastrophic ones, as is the typical strategy in modern times. Is the catastrophe still coming from the 70s to now? 50 years later? This is the most repeated quip that makes no sense. Same with companies, everyone just repeats "omg they only care about short term" and then years after years the company tro…

The site [1] I already linked has a number of excellent graphs of the endless major inflection points driven by the shift in 1971. Most started in the years prior to 1971 since 1971 was, itself, also a longer term consequence of years of previous mistakes.

Many of those issues started out fairly small and had a rather small impact relative to the initial benefits of 'financial liberty', but those benefits faded fairly rapidly, while the consequences not only remain, but continue to grow. It turns out that free money is rather expensive.

If you look at the achievements and progress that was being made in the 60s in the US in practically every domain, and then you showed them what 60 years in the future awaited for them, the most common response, outside of digital gizmos, would probably be 'what went wrong?'

[1] - https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#178

Post by cringleyrobert » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 12:24 PM UTC

aloha2436 wrote: post #26

America was in practice running an empire that collected tribute from the rest of planet earth in exchange for entries in a database denominated in a currency they controlled and that was accepted everywhere. Really the only way it could go wrong is putting it under the control of someone who doesn't understand the kayfabe...

Just make sure it’s real gold, not just a number on a spreadsheet, or a golden Twinkie made up of tungsten! India got caught with their heads in their asses with that one!

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#179

Post by lazide » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 12:41 PM UTC

manuelmoreale wrote: post #169

expedition32 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is politics. Which makes people who want to avoid it look delusional. As for polarization that's been the modus operandi in my country for at least 500 years. Everyone hates everyone but the alternative was the French, English or Spanish so what can you do? Turns out you actually really don't need to love your neighbour.

> Everything is politics. Everything you want to be politics is politics. Caring for other people shouldn't be politics. Being a decent human being shouldn't be politics. There are plenty of things that aren't politics unless you decide you want to turn them into politics.

The issue is when you get down to the edge cases, you get into politics again.

Is ‘caring’ (what does that mean exactly?) for someone on death row good or bad? You’ll likely find splits in answers along ‘political’ lines, especially depending on things like the nature of the crime, who the victim was, etc.

Is ‘caring’ (again, in what way?) for someone in Palestine good or bad? Or worth how much money to do? Similar split. How about Iran?

What about someone in the inner cities? Who doesn’t work?

Etc.

Hand wavy general statements are easy to have, but when it gets down to actual implementation is when real groups of people start to have very different concrete opinions on how it should be done.

You’ll also find lots of shaming among the group and against ‘outsiders’ trying to enforce idealogy. And if you think that part doesn’t happen, just read your own comment - it’s a mild form of that!

That is politics.

Re: Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset

#180

Post by bdelmas » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 12:44 PM UTC

gpt5 wrote: post #130

yosefk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we're at it, when did central banks start to buy lots of gold and under which POTUS? Could it have something to do with the freezing of hundreds of billions of some sovereign assets?

There is something awfully bad happening to the internet, including Hacker News. It seems like rage-baiting, polarizing titles and vibe based comments are being upvoted, with no interest in the facts. For example, in this case: 1. The growth of the gold reserve in comparison to US Treasuries have very little to do with growth in gold acquisition, and has everything to do with gold more than doubling in price in a yea…

I think there are less experts on HN than years ago or a decade ago. And the culture of HN is getting slightly changing to a more Reddit culture every year.

It’s too bad because it’s the only place I know where you have experts in tech but also in other industries. And where I got very interesting discussions.