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

#201

Post by AngryData » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

ETH_start wrote: post #71

SilverElfin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a self decapitation exactly. I think Trump, his family, his corporate donors, and other friends are all willing to sacrifice everyone else - including the lead America had - to make themselves rich and powerful. Every single decision to spend - defense, ICE contracts, AI, approvals of anticompetitive acquisitions, changes to regulations, etc - is making that circle richer at our expense. They don’t care if A…

The US lead over the EU in per capita productivity has massively grown over the last 20 years. There's no indication of waning American power. America has produced 70 times more stock market wealth if you look only at companies created within the last 50 years than the EU. And this is not all paper wealth. If you look at technological sophistication, whether that's frontier AI models, leading-edge pharmaceutical drug…

As just an average US citizen living in a not so prosperous area, this rings pretty hollow to my mind and most of Europe sure looks like it is winning over 95% of the people that live around me. We already know the stock market is divorced from reality, IP rights are a short-term benefit, and I fail to see how having more compute or starlink satellites are suppose to carry the US into future economic prosperity.

Now im not saying everything is bad, but it sure feels like a lot of the US economy is a Lamborgini shell stuck on the body of a Ford Focus and we think we are winning because most people haven't noticed yet and the profit margins are higher than ever. Europe sure ain't perfect, they got plenty of problems, but their problems are more like worrying about percentage points in the future, while in the US the worry is whether our economy is going to provide for people at all not in the top 25% long-term. And an angry and unsatisfied mass of lower class people is a recipe for upheaval with everyone on top relying on that not happening.

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

#202

Post by AngryData » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 4:03 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #22

SilverElfin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a self decapitation exactly. I think Trump, his family, his corporate donors, and other friends are all willing to sacrifice everyone else - including the lead America had - to make themselves rich and powerful. Every single decision to spend - defense, ICE contracts, AI, approvals of anticompetitive acquisitions, changes to regulations, etc - is making that circle richer at our expense. They don’t care if A…

How does sacrificing America's lead make American oligarchs richer? That doesn't even make sense.

As an analogy, you can pump the yield of your crop fields by 50% if you are willing to deplete the soil and cash in on 100 years of careful building of the topsoil layer. The person doing it wins out in the short term 10 years, but society loses out long-term when they gotta spend another 100 years of much lower yields to build the top soil back up to healthy levels. Meanwhile the 10 year guy already made his money and sold off whats dregs are left to seek the next snatch and grab operation.

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

#203

Post by rootusrootus » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 4:16 PM UTC

rapind wrote: post #129

hax0ron3 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with probably the majority of Trump's main policy ideas, but I think a strong case can be made that his immigration policies are in the country's best interests. Not all of them, but as a whole.

What blows my mind is how liberals and progressives (of which I count myself a member) don't see to care that this is the policy that pushed Trump into office. Without it he would have flopped with just his MAGA core. All you need to do to fix illegal immigration is to go after the employers. You know, actually enforce the laws. Streamline it. Declare it a national emergency and put more onerous requirements on busin…

The dems spend a disproportionate amount of effort courting tiny voting blocs (e.g. trans) and immigrants unable to vote at all. It is frustrating.

But it does seem to be what their base wants. Keeps the higher moral ground without the irritating responsibility to govern.

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

#204

Post by daft_pink » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 4:23 PM UTC

It’s obvious that printing money is the best way out of the USAs debt problem. Gold still sucks though.

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

#205

Post by AngryData » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 4:40 PM UTC

fc417fc802 wrote: post #79

vincnetas wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this somehow excludes such human concept as sense of belonging. might be in usa it has atrophied already but sense of home is really important in some places. place where you spend most of your life, where you have you real social network, neighbors and childhood friends. sometimes its lower tax is not worth loosing it all. its not everything about money (for some) ps im talking about real persons here, not corporati…

You're talking about people who aren't ultra wealthy there. Once the tax bill gets high enough relative to elsewhere it doesn't make sense not to jump through the hoops to change your place of residence.

Once you are ultra-wealthy you don't need to worry about taxes unless you are so greedy as to make earning infinite money your only goal in life even if it hurts you in every other way. And it is silly to set general policy based around how irrational and neurotic individuals will act.

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

#206

Post by mancerayder » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

bdelmas wrote: post #180

gpt5 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's unfortunately someone who is posting some HN articles in a hackernews subreddit. I think that's contributed to the rise of Mr. Hot Take One-Liner Mic Drop, that posts something with 20 one liner replies, always at the top. If that continues happening I'm out.

One interesting factoid, since I can remember on HN, if you ever likened a conversation to Reddit they'd downvote you to grey. There are two ways to read that - Reddit is fine, don't criticize it; Reddit is embarrassing, don't diminish the conversation by comparing us to it.

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

#207

Post by overfeed » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

ETH_start wrote: post #136

overfeed wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's because the EU has largely fixated itself on reducing wealth inequality by punishing those who succeed. It's actually because America pivoted[1] from manufacturing to higher-margin services (financial, tech[2]), and generations of American Diplomats had negotiated trade deals that ensure American services are never shut-out or hobbled in most countries. American companies won't look so special,or be nearly as…

If you're familiar with American capital markets and global venture capital, you'd know that it had almost nothing to do with these trade deals. They had a marginal impact. The amount of capital available to startups and established companies at all stages of their development was the main difference. And the difference between the US and EU in that regard came mostly from the US simply not sabotaging itself the way…

> ...that locale would have succeeded, because of the national economic policy it operated inside of.

The US policy is about to become a lot more robust and a lot less laissez-faire. Over the decades, the public image of tech CEOs has switched from benign, awkward but genius dorks, to out-of-control bond villains.

There's a tech backlash happening in the US, if you've been paying attention, and legislators follow the voter zeitgeist.

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

#208

Post by fc417fc802 » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

AngryData wrote: post #205

fc417fc802 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about people who aren't ultra wealthy there. Once the tax bill gets high enough relative to elsewhere it doesn't make sense not to jump through the hoops to change your place of residence.

Once you are ultra-wealthy you don't need to worry about taxes unless you are so greedy as to make earning infinite money your only goal in life even if it hurts you in every other way. And it is silly to set general policy based around how irrational and neurotic individuals will act.

I'm uncertain if I should have included "ultra" there. Point is that the father up the tax bracket you are in this scenario the more of the bill you foot and the larger your monetary incentive to relocate.

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

#209

Post by rapind » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:06 PM UTC

laughing_man wrote: post #135

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the better question: If you were serious about reducing the deficit, what would you cut? It should be possible to reduce Medicare costs significantly by going after healthcare costs in general, i.e. create a ton of new medical residency slots and train a lot of new doctors, and make the healthcare companies actually compete with each other. The AMA and healthcare companies are going to fight you hard. We curre…

Agreed. This should have been addressed decades ago, and every year that goes buy it will get harder to deal with. Me, I'd cut everything. Right now, when interest rates are relatively low, we're spending more to service the debt than we're spending on defense. This isn't a problem we can address with half measures.

The giant sacred cows are Defence (War) and Social Security. Could probably solve the deficit pretty quickly by getting money out of politics, especially defence contractor and AIPAC money.

That would require a significant political overhaul though.

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

#210

Post by rapind » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

scruple wrote: post #196

rapind wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone too stupid to understand That's only true if he's actually "your guy". There's an alternative where it's not stupidity that I think more people should be mulling over.

So it's a controlled demolition? In this view, is the goal to devalue our own debt? Extract value while it still has value?

> In this view, is the goal to devalue our own debt?

I'm sure that'll be some quacks argument, but I think the goal is simpler. Straight up looting by those in power and their rich friends.