71–80 of 329 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily. It’s fair to wager that the gold they speak of is gold securities and not literal gold bars because if they try to collect gold bars they’re going to be sad.
The gold in question is physical gold. Almost certainly standardized bars.
Question, how do you test if a bar of gold is really 100% gold without deforming it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US might literally just not give it to them. Germany has been trying to ask for their gold back for a while IIRC and they generally get an explanation that paraphrases to it being a very complex operation to pull off and they should come back next year. The US has enough leverage over Germany that the Nord Stream incident is still an unsolved mystery where everyone just moved on. Probably the Russians did it. Tha…
The official line in Germany is actually that Ukraine most probably did it: https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/nordstream-17... https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/nord-stream-s... https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explos... Knowledge or agreement by Selensky is unclear, but there seem to be hints. Poland might have been complicit or at least turned a blind eye and seems to…
who even needs a ton of gold?
Question, how do you test if a bar of gold is really 100% gold without deforming it?
https://archive.is/20250623093918/https://www.ft.com/content... I have doubts the current US administration would let them without some sort of retaliation (e.g. more tariffs)
Doesn't this basically justify why they have qualms? To not seek to repatriate in this circumstance would seem politically unwise, if you value the gold. If of course it's just a bargaining tool, you would think there is a quit pro quo. Whilst the impact of a refusal to repatriate would be high remember the gold is probably not performing very much of a role, beyond a defensive one, and is nothing like the whole of t…
yeah, I mean, this administration really doesn't seem to mind taking on significant costs - to the country I mean. I don't think the administration likes the idea of bearing significant costs themselves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US might literally just not give it to them. Germany has been trying to ask for their gold back for a while IIRC and they generally get an explanation that paraphrases to it being a very complex operation to pull off and they should come back next year. The US has enough leverage over Germany that the Nord Stream incident is still an unsolved mystery where everyone just moved on. Probably the Russians did it. Tha…
People struggle with uncertainty so much that any magical thinking they can come up with will do… we simply don’t know the truth on this at all.
https://archive.is/20250623093918/https://www.ft.com/content... I have doubts the current US administration would let them without some sort of retaliation (e.g. more tariffs)
Doesn't this basically justify why they have qualms? To not seek to repatriate in this circumstance would seem politically unwise, if you value the gold. If of course it's just a bargaining tool, you would think there is a quit pro quo. Whilst the impact of a refusal to repatriate would be high remember the gold is probably not performing very much of a role, beyond a defensive one, and is nothing like the whole of t…
> On what grounds could the US refuse?
"You need our trade more than we need your trade" is a very useful property to have when it comes to international law. Putting people you don't like on sanction lists, like people investigating your ally's war crimes, also seems to work pretty well. When push comes to shove, there's always "we have more guns than you", though American diplomatic action generally prefers to overthrow governments and install new, more US-aligned leadership as a head of state.
If it's a matter of law, you need someone to enforce that law.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was famously answered by Archimedes in his Eureka moment: https://www.longlongtimeago.com/once-upon-a-time/great-disco...
That's a children's parable. You can easily defeat the test by using two metals, one denser than gold and one lighter, whose combination matches the density of gold, and then putting a veneer of gold on top of it.
It could be done now but most of the candidate elements cost more than gold. Uranium looks feasible if the gold veneer will block the radiation which otherwise might tip off the recipient.