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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

#231

Post by mdavid626 »

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.

CDU/CSU got 28%, CSU around 5%. The latest polls indicate AfD surpassing CDU (not the union!).

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

#232

Post by slightwinder »

parthdesai wrote: post #101
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…

Is far-left really pro-Russia or just anti-US? Not everyone that is anti-US (which a lot of people with common sense would be tbf) is pro-Russia

They are mainly pro-communism and anti-capitalism, delve in Marxism, Lenin, Stalin, etc. and are very supportive, less critical of modern Russia. It's probably kinda like people who are supportive of the USA, don't necessarily are supportive of everything MAGA & Trump are doing, but still support it in general.

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

#233

Post by mdavid626 »

eqvinox wrote: post #139
sharpshadow wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I’m not sure what to say. We can talk about the exact meaning of the words, but it doesn’t really matter. I’m not saying AfD is good or bad, just telling you the facts. AfD surpassed CDU (not the union!) in the latest polls. In the last elections they “won” in east Germany. You can’t block a party, if half the country votes for it. Let’s see what’s coming.

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

#234

Post by breakyerself »

user____name wrote: post #224
bboygravity wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The entire US banking and financial system relies on NOT delivering or owning the underlying (fractional reserve banking, federal reserve printing money out of thin air This is sadly a very common misunderstanding of how money is created inside the financial system, even by professional economists and financial advisers. In reality money is not valued at parity with some physical material but as a simple act of acc…

It's a good response. Too many people are enamored by the gold standard. They think things were better in the past when the opposite is true.

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

#235

Post by crossroadsguy »

tock wrote: post #183

Not sure why people call this Russian propaganda. India flew in lots of their gold too recently. Central banks have been increasing their exposure to gold a lot recently as well. If trust in the US is low then it makes sense to move your reserves. Countries are rightfully fearful of their reserves being frozen for whatever reason.

> for whatever reason

And the biggest of that is:

——

"Look, I don't know... I really don't know. We're talking about a country's gold, very valuable, very beautiful. And we might freeze it. Or we might not. I mean, who knows? It's a big decision, a very big decision. Some people say, 'Freeze it, Mr. President! It'll be great, the best!' Others, and good people, they say, 'Maybe not, maybe we do something else.' But I'll tell you what, I do like frozen things. They're nice. Very nice. You know, you freeze something, it's solid, it's secure. It's beautiful. It's really beautiful. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. It's all on the table. Believe me."

—-

And you’d still say itself far fetched? :-)

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

#236

Post by NoOn3 »

taikahessu wrote: post #189
paganel wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

EU might certainly not be perfect, but as of yet, we don't shoot our own people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre

There are a lot of inconsistencies, and it looks very much like it's rigged. Russia simply had no reason to do such a thing.

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

#237

Post by tock »

qwytw wrote: post #195
tock wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is a safe haven against currency risk thats all.

And yet it wasn't a very good asset to hold between 1980 and 2000, despite quite high inflation during the period. It's nominal value barely moved while real value of USD halved.

Gold isn't really held because central banks expect its value to go up always. It's held because its safe from other risks like assets being frozen, the currency completely collapsing to 0, etc. Gold has managed to always hold "some value" over centuries. It's a hedge.

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

#238

Post by tonyedgecombe »

hannob wrote: post #175
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…

> The Germans in this article all appear to be aligned to either BSW (populist far-left, pro-Russia, anti-US) Picturing BSW as far-left, while not uncommon, strikes me always as very strange. While it's a bit unclear where to put them with their wild mixture of populism, the only reason they are by some seen as leftwing is because of the history of their founder. She was previously a member of the left party, but for…

The far left don’t look much different from the far right.

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

#239

Post by alephnerd »

I am absolutely startled by the amount of AfW and BSW apologism on this thread.

At some point I have to wonder if this is even organic - especially given that companies like Upvote Club have openly advertised being able to bypass the bot detectors on HN. And nation state bots have occasionally been on HN - one similar nation state backed disinfo network that Meta cracked down on in 2023 was posting on HN as well.

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

#240

Post by badestrand »

hannob wrote: post #175
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…

> The Germans in this article all appear to be aligned to either BSW (populist far-left, pro-Russia, anti-US) Picturing BSW as far-left, while not uncommon, strikes me always as very strange. While it's a bit unclear where to put them with their wild mixture of populism, the only reason they are by some seen as leftwing is because of the history of their founder. She was previously a member of the left party, but for…

The BSW is indeed an interesting mix because they are conservative-liberal-left while usually leftist parties are progressive and authoritarian-leaning instead.

Examples for the BSW's left politics are * higher taxes for the rich * higher taxes for large and international companies * take on new debt to finance stuff * more state-aided social housing.

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