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Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

reuters.com

651–660 of 857 posts

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#651
post #42

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. It's all a sliding slope until it reaches a breaking point and falls off like a cliff. EDIT: to quote the Canadian PN earlier today: “American hegemony in particular helped provide public goo…

[flagged]

> acquire land via direct negotiations with Greenland natives

"Greenland does not want to be controlled by the US. Greenland does not want to be owned by the US." - Jens-Fredrik Nielsen, Greenland PM

This view is shared by ~95% of Greenlanders.

You can't unilaterally enter "direct negotiations" with people to purchase their belongings. The active and willing participation of both parties is a key element of a genuine negotiation.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a thing? I have never heard about that, living in QC for the last 20 years and owned and rode dozens of cars. The car salesman looked at me as a rare species when I wanted a manual Soul. I have never seen an no AC or manual windows car here.

Sorry, I'm old. I last lived in Canada 20 years ago. Times do change, but yes this very much used to be a thing. Base model/optionless imports still are, however. Everything I said about the roads and title washing still applies.

Also, https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/06/quebecs-obsession-...

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the past 15 years the European economy has grown from 16.25 to 18.50 trillion per World Bank. In 2008 the combined economic strength of the EU was 110% of the United State's. Today it's ~65%. By and large the European economy completely missed the mark on the Internet/Web3.0 technology revolution. You certainly have bright spots like ASML, but those are the exception and not the rule. It's reindustrialization ef…

The ratio in money between the revenues in Europe and those in USA is rather misleading. With the same amount of money you can do much more in Europe. Even in the few domains where USA had a traditional advantage, like the prices of electronic devices, e.g. computers, things have changed a lot recently. Prompted by another discussion thread on HN, I have compared yesterday some prices for computers and associated com…

Someone has downvoted for unknown reasons my posting, even if what I have written are just true facts, not some personal opinion.

Perhaps the downvoter has not believed that the prices have become so bad in USA, but then he/she should have checked the prices instead of downvoting.

After another HN poster has said yesterday that he has just bought a computer in Europe and the same computer was more expensive by 37.5% in USA, I thought that this is unbelievable, so I have also checked myself the prices.

I have just bought an ASUS NUC computer in Europe at a price equivalent with $490 and the same computer is on Newegg at $679, i.e. more expensive by 38.5%, a value very close to that reported by the other poster.

Moreover, I have equipped that computer with an 1 TB SSD and 32 GB DDR5, at a hugely increased price in comparison with last summer, i.e. the DDR5 modules are more than 3 times more expensive now (thanks to the US companies hoarding memory devices). Even so, the total cost in Europe was equivalent with slightly less than $900 while the same configuration on Newegg was slightly less than $1200.

Q.E.D.

In past years the opposite was true, i.e. computers and related components were cheaper in USA, even if the difference was not so great as it is now in the reverse direction.

Therefore it is clear that the dollar is overvalued, its true value is much less in comparison with the euro than the official exchange rate says. For most non-electronic things, the prices were lower in Europe even before. So the GDP of USA is also not as big as it is claimed.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#654
post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no chance US will need to take Greenland by force ( financial or military) , all it has to do is to increase the number of troops already stationed there by agreement. Yet here we are.

>all it has to do is to increase the number of troops Demonstrably wrong as Trump announced tariffs on the countries sending troops to Greenland.

Which more than well illustrates the absurd claims that the US needs Greenland because Europe places too little military power there.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#655
https://www.pensiondanmark.com/en/investments/equity-list/?A...

Hopefully they'll sell off their Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, and other US equity holdings too. Part of the reason US equities are so expensive is massive foreign inflows. Foreign divestment of US equities would mean more Americans could buy them up cheap.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#656

My local coin store was busier today than I've ever seen it (visit about once a quarter, for about a decade). Lots of people transacting silver — so much so that the buyback fees were about 50% more than usual — and yet people were primarily turning silver/USD into gold (myself included). When you consider that historically our US fiat has been 65:1 (Au:Ag), it's scary to see the ratio back around the levels when Bre…

Out of curiosity, what are the transaction costs like for buying and selling physical gold/silver? I would imagine it to be quite costly, especially compared with spreads on equities. I've wondered if maybe large metals funds get better rates, but also have no idea.

>what are the transaction costs like for buying and selling physical gold/silver?

This depends on soooo many factors (mainly: mint, store, and your relationship(s) within). I buy and sell both stocks and bullion on long-term (years), and am typically only selling when I get over-extended on a project (construction renovations) and absolutely need liquidity [e.g: today's visit]. Young-forty-something.

But today at my US coin store (in a no-tax state), you could buy/sell a Canadian Mapleleaf (an ounce of 99.99% gold in easily-recognizable coin format) for 2.5% spot. For real physical gold that you can hold & hear (isn't fake/heavily-leveraged "paper gold").

I never recommend anybody transacts less than an ounce because the fees rapidly increase on smaller denominations (e.g. tenths are fee-prohibitive, other than as less-expensive gifts for recent graduates). Buy ounce coins, long-term, at regular intervals (no timing the market, only time IN the market!).

Silver is a wildcard, at least at my local shops. Today it cost me 6.5% to unload a few hundred ounces — which sucks, but shops are buying lots of silver right now given its recent increases; this increases their risk (should the market correct, which it probably will around $100 IMHO). Typically this would have been about 4.5% — still, I more than quadrupled my original investment (from just a few years ago).

So definitely you shouldn't be buying/selling bullion short term (fees will eat you alive!) — but it is always nice to have an emergency fund that isn't fiat (i.e. losing value guaranteed) but is also immediately convertible back into currency (no mail / ACH / bank delays).

I have about a year of my normal income in physical bullion. Most I've been holding on to for years — which is how you should transact physical metals. Timing any market is impossible... it doesn't always even rhyme.

[•] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_cost_averaging

Disclaimer: I am a forty-something electrician — not your financial advisor — and am the type of risk-taker that has "stupidly" taken 10% of his paycheck in bitcoin/bullion, since 2013.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment: A new civil war that drives the US to fragment into several independent regions over the course of the next ~five years would kind of be the best scenario from a global perspective. is nutty.

What is "nutty" about it? For countries outside the US, it would actually not be a bad scenario. Better than having your supreme leader threatening invasion, annexation, promoting coups and so on.

[deleted]

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realise it is arthimetically impossible to balance all the desired export surpluses of the EU, China, Japan, etc together without the US as the demand sink right? Whatever adjustment comes is certainly going to require somebody to act in a manner contrary to their current strategies, and it's going to be a painful adjustment. And which is harder? Bringing back production to satiate domestic demand or increasin…

That furthers the imbalance to the detriment of the US and in favor of the holders of whichever currency replaces USD. Dedollarization means that the US market is far poorer and can't import as much as before, yet the new reserve currency(ies) make holders that much richer, enabling greater demand for either imports or self-consumption. It will be an adjustment, but there will be many winners, none of which are the U…

>The supposed US trade war on China has resulted in their GDP growing by a massive 5% last year.

I'd take those numbers with a grain of salt. China is known to play with the numbers to hit goals when they feel that they need to.

>The US will be plummeted into massive recession by those sudden changes, while the rest of the world merely trades with whoever are the winners.

The massive devaluation in the dollar would mean that the country would become incredibly attractive for manufacturing exports, which would prevent a massive recession.

>If, for example, China decides that it finally wants a consumer economy, and the Renminbi becomes a partial reserve currency, the consumer demand will be absolutely massive.

If you think that China is going to shut down the majority of its factories, move them to other countries, and let their currency float freely (well, freer than it is today), you're delusional.

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO came into being to deal with the USSR, which was the preeminent threat to all NATO members. The US wasn't expected just to come save Europe; European states had real military power and the will to bring it to bear against the US's main adversary. In a conflict with the USSR, the US could rely on Europe to fight with them. Very valuable. Today, US policymakers see China as the main adversary. But European states…

Except for the Europeans that are literally fighting Russia.

Unfortunately Ukraine is not a NATO member, despite the US's attempts to bring them into the alliance. You can thank France and Germany for that: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nato-allies-reject-u-s-push-fo...

Re: Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

#660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment: A new civil war that drives the US to fragment into several independent regions over the course of the next ~five years would kind of be the best scenario from a global perspective. is nutty.

What is "nutty" about it? For countries outside the US, it would actually not be a bad scenario. Better than having your supreme leader threatening invasion, annexation, promoting coups and so on.

We’ve apparently abandoned the meaning of the word “best,” for staters.

> For countries outside the US, it would actually not be a bad scenario.

I really don’t think I can help you, but the two obvious crazy ideas encompassed here are that civil wars never turn into wider regional conflicts and that losing a major trading partner never tanked an economy. Or that the ideological conflict here won’t possibly spread anywhere else (did you not even notice Vance and Musk’s support of afd ?) Good luck with all that.

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