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Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

reuters.com

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Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#641

Post by munksbeer »

rayiner wrote: post #579
munksbeer wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this response. Surely you are aware that Denmark doesn't come as a little isolated package? Your country, the US, gets a group deal. Your allies in Europe have sent soldiers to die for you very recently. Including, little Denmark. On the back of pax Americana, supported by your allies, you have continued to live as the most prosperous nation the world has ever seen. That system did not arise out of…

> I've seen you hand wave this away (because of course you would) suggesting the US was rich already. How is it "hand waving?" Whether or not the U.S. has gained "long-term economic advantages" from its leadership of NATO is a key factual question. It's the central premise of your paragraph about "pax Americana." You can't simply assume that fact is true. The relative gaps in GDP per capita between the U.S., Denmark…

Why would I need to respond to a random reddit thread and few figures you throw around?

You're wanting to overturn the widely held orthodox view that pax americana worked as intended. I'm sure there is an enormous amount of literature about that you could read. I don't think the onus is on me to come up with proof that you're wrong and the orthodox view is in fact, correct.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#642

Post by kyboren »

jacquesm wrote: post #561
kyboren wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Obviously the Trump admin is requesting an increased military budget because of looming global conflict. We don't want to get caught with our pants down. Russia obviously bears the moral blame for starting this war, but Putin clearly was tempted by Western weakness. Had European states kept large and effective militaries and credibly threatened to employ them in Ukraine's defense, we probably wouldn't be where we…

Agreed that Putin was tempted by Western weakness, but you didn't go far enough West.

Oh, right. I forgot that European states have no agency or responsibility and are innocent victims of big bad America. Mea culpa.

I wrote "Western" rather than "European" specifically because I believe American weakness has played a role, too. But would it really make it better if Russia invaded Europe solely because of American weakness? That European states are so weak and helpless that they hardly even factor into Putin's calculus?

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#643

Post by glial »

epistasis wrote: post #468
jonathanstrange wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we witness seems to be a lack of control due to a vicious feedback loop that eliminates dissenters and reasonable, moderate people from positions of power. The longer it stays active, the worse it becomes. In other authoritarian systems this is not so noticeable because their leaders act more rationally to begin with, although they tend to lose their grip on reality in the long run, too.

That's definitely going on. There's also something that I've heard called "reactionary centrism:" a feedback loop of people who think that truth lies in the middle between the two extremes, and also that assumes that no mainstream position in a political faction can itself be the "extreme." And that if they find that one political faction is doing something that seems extreme to them, that in the interests of fairnes…

> lacking many core values to guide them

This is a fundamental problem and one reason we're mired in this culture war. Social friction is caused by jostling based on group membership, and there's no common values-based scaffolding we can use to collaborate in building a better way.

I used to scoff when told to say the pledge of allegiance as a young person. Now, the closing words "liberty and justice for all" sound quite aspirational.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#644

Post by bawolff »

mmkos wrote: post #639
PlatoIsADisease wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is where the financial rubber meets the road, actions have consequences This is $100M. No one will notice it. Be a bit realistic here. Maybe you have no skin in the game, so you can be idealistic.

I fully expect this comment to age like milk and soon.

Even if it does, he still has a point. The first pebble that forms an avalanche is often symbolic. The symbol influencing others is how we get the avalanche.

This move by itself doesn't do much. The question is if it will influence others.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#645

Post by lenerdenator »

Barrin92 wrote: post #637
lenerdenator wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's symbolism. But it's important symbolism. Far more notable, I think, is Macron saying this morning that Europe needs more investment from China. Canada signing a deal with China to allow their cars to be sold in the country. The better move would be to invest internally. China wants a hegemony, whether they acknowledge it out loud or not. As Europe and Canada start seeking Chinese investment, the Chinese will s…

>the Chinese will seek something in return. They're not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. of course they aren't but it's also obvious what they want. Design a new global order where they have a seat at the table and get to determine standards, processes and technologies. That's the point of investing in telecommunications, cars, and so on. But what they don't want is annex European territory. China is s…

> But what they don't want is annex European territory.

They've more-or-less directly supported Russia's ambitions in Ukraine. If they don't want to annex your territory but are willing to support someone who does in the bloodiest war on the continent since the end of WWII, is there really a difference? They know they aren't in a place to project power over Europe, but they have a partner that absolutely is. I'd keep a close eye on how forgiving European countries have to be of Russia in order to curry favor with the Chinese in the coming years.

> so they'll likely make for a better partner for any civilized country than powers that descend into 19th century colonial neo-imperialism run by people who may as well come straight out of the Warhammer universe.

The problem is, deep down, none of that means anything to the ruling class of any European nation. If it did, Russia doesn't get the chance to do anything of consequence internationally after their incursion into South Ossetia in 2008. There would be no ambiguity regarding the future of Taiwan vis-a-vis control under the PRC. There wouldn't be investment deals now.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#646

Post by acdha »

jimnotgym wrote: post #11
adrr wrote: post #2

What happens when USD stops becoming the the reserve currency for the world? And who takes its place?

My guess would be EUR takes its place, gold will also be used more. I guess what happens is USD gets much weaker and US buying power goes down. Maybe destroying the USD will eventually cause the boost to domestic manufacturing that Trump wanted, since foreign goods will be out of reach. Cut down the forest to kill a squirrel. I'm no expert though

Domestic manufacturing isn’t coming back without a thoughtful investment program. A lot of older people still think of China like in the 1980s where it was mostly low-wage, low-quality products but that’s nothing like true now and they have entire clusters of world-class product pipelines with long supply chains which would take a long time to bring back in stages.

The other problem seems even bigger: we don’t have many high-skill workers available, but our wages are high enough that anyone bringing manufacturing back is going to try to automate it as much as possible. That seems like a real bind for the Republicans’ isolationist strategy: exports will be down due to a trade war and a difficult price/value ratio in the areas other countries currently dominate, and if we’re heading into a more automated economy we’re going to have a growing number of people who won’t be able to afford to buy much. This seems like a vicious self-inflicted cycle if it gets rolling.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#647

Post by alephnerd »

alephnerd wrote: post #534
moogly wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "prized industries" are still there other than automakers? They're already boned, they just haven't accepted it. China now leads the world on R&D and hard science, and is already making strides in chip design and chip making. How far off do you think a Chinese ASML is? Two decades at most? Or more like one? And what would be the solution? I think we've all learned that protectionism doesn't work.

> What "prized industries" are still there other than automakers? Automation Engineering, Materials Engineering, Biopharmaceuticals, Automotive Engineering (already mentioned), and Genomics. China has made tremendous gains, but that should not undermine the fact that the fundamentals still exist within the EU, but Europeans on the Internet seem to vaccilate between chest-thumping Euro-nationalism (which is dead in th…

Interesting how the handful of comments I made that are pro-EU and shore up European strategic autonomy get downvoted, yet any comments I make that undermine European strategic autonomy in a manner that is aligned to that of think tanks at Fudan is upvoted...

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#648

Post by mmkos »

marcusverus wrote: post #511
brookst wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the symbolism more than direct financial impact. You get 100 moves like this and it starts to become real money.

100 moves of this size (~$10B) would make up 0.1% of foreign-held US treasuries (~$8.5T).

I'd say each move like this increases the likelihood of the next one happening, and typically, nobody wants to be the last one holding the bag.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#649

Post by egl2020 »

anabab wrote: post #255
lateforwork wrote: post #141

This quote from Trump is very revelatory: “I’m a real estate developer, I look at a corner, I say, ‘I’ve got to get that store for the building that I’m building,’ etc. It’s not that different. I love maps. And I always said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.’” Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/us/politics/trump-greenla...

Ah, it is all Mercator's fault

Mercator projection aside, Greenland is not tiny. The ice-free area is about as big as California. If you include the icy areas, it's bigger than any U.S. state.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#650

Post by bawolff »

soerxpso wrote: post #293
jacquesm wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a one sided thing. The US has been allowed to do a lot of things under the NATO umbrella that it benefited from (such as: selling a vast quantity of arms). Soft power is a thing and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization came into being to deal with exactly the kind of situation that we are viewing today. To see the US bow out, and in fact threatening allies is duplicitous at best.

I find it interesting how people say "The US" to refer to groups under the US government that are often completely at odds with the interests of the actual US public. There are virtually no Americans who want our government to be acting in the interests of arms manufacturers except the arms manufacturers themselves and the politicians they pay.

It gets annoying how americans try and wash their hands of everything their government does. You live in a democracy. Freedom comes with responsibility. The average american voter is at least partially to blame.
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