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 trying to say is that these two do not represent the German political landscape at all. They also, while on different ends of the left-right-spectrum, both only represent the pro-Russian minority of the German political landscape. This is not a debate happening in Germany right now and no other party has expressed support of any position.
I thought Wagenknecht had somewhat distanced herself from pro-kremlin positions she and parts of Die Linke previously held? She's still pretty staunchly anti-NATO, though. I think her German-nationalist positions kind of overlap with positions that benefit Russia like resuming gas supplies to drop energy prices and heating costs.
The top AfD politicians, of course. But there are many other AfD members and employees who received money from Russian influenced people. Currently, the top AfD politicians are shifting from being in love with Russia to being in love with the US.
Actually the AfD has been fined several times because they have violated the donation regulations for political parties (2017, 2020 and 2021).
Other way around, Wagenknecht is the one who didn't distance herself from the Kremlin and forked off her own party, BSW, which finally enabled Die Linke to get at least some distance from the Kremlin. (This schism was fracturing that party so hard…)
We are talking about a splinter party (BSW) from the main left party (Die Linke) which is a kind of anti-woke- and anti-immigration-party that spouts basically the normal Kremlin propaganda lines about Ukraine. There is of course anti-US sentiment there since is secondary to their main issue, peace at any cost so that Germany can get cheaper energy again.
Note that I'm not a German national but I live in Germany (former DDR / East) since 9 years.
Not just in Germany but elsewhere, the rule of thumb is that libertarian socialists (anarchists etc) tend to be both anti-US and anti-Russia, while the more common and more authoritarian kind tend to be pro-whoever is anti West, including Russia, China, or places like Syria was under Assad.
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.
> 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 many years, even while she still was a member of that party, has not held any views that could count as far-left.
The only reason some still put her in the far-left camp is that she was, looooong ago, a member of the communist platform in the PDS, the predecessor of the left party in Germany.
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.
It's not just this administration, it's been essentially open season for fraud in the U.S. financial system ever since 2008. If you're a hoi polloi dentist who makes $100,000 trading options off of some insider info then yes, there are SEC cops on the beat who will come after you. Otherwise, you can pretty much do whatever you want until & unless a whole lot of people lose money, at which point it's too late.
AfD represents the political landscape, even if they (yet) have no power because other parties have chosen to marginalise them whilst still can. As long as you have votes, there are people behind you. Isn’t that democracy?
As it is correct, that they are virtually not in power, framing them as pro-russia is some sort of false flag. Just because they are not anti-russia, like every other party, does not automatically mean that they are pro-russia. AfD and BSW together got more then 25% of all votes. So, you are correct, they virtually are not in power, but they have some real power just by being there.
This HN post here is the best example for this mechanism.
AfD has SO many connections to the Kremel. At least a big part of AfD is obiously influenced by russian agenda. BSW is a different topic. They might just align with many points russia likes, but you can not be sure either.
BSW or AfD with power in the Bundestag would be russias wet dream in regards to german politics.
>framing them as pro-russia is some sort of false flag.
They just take russian talking points and deliver them to their voters. It's just conveniently the same shit. And business trips to russia are just there to enjoy the scenery.
If they talk like russians, are present in russia, do interviews in russian media and don't condemn russian warcrimes...
They are openly supporting Russia, take their money, visit them while meeting high ranking Russian assets and are spreading the same Ideas. There is no framing here.
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 back.
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, failures to deliver every single day on everything from stocks to government bonds, failing CDS'es and so on).
> 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 accounting [0,1,2,3,4].
Historically a currency (subset) has been pegged against rare minerals as a method of insurance against state or exchange rate instability, the flip side is that this restricts state spending and economic growth -- a growing economy needs a growing stock of currency to service loans and avoid debt driven deflation, as in e.g. the great depression [5,6,7].
This is why gold/silver standards are always episodic in world history [8].
Even in the fien-de-secle gold standard era the majority of currency in circulation had its origin in endogenous bank lending [9].
The typical stability and viability of a currency is from the fact that it can be used to procure real goods in the wider market, which in turn is because money contracts are legally enforced via social power relations, e.g. by a local government with the power make and enforce such rules. Incidentally this is why cryptocurrencies act as an investment asset and not as a currency, it lacks the enforcement component and it appreciates in value, which is never what you want for a currency [10].
You're correct this does not matter this year. But in the 2013 German election, AFD got no seats, and now it has the second most seats. BSW was not around in the 2021 election, they got about 5% of the vote but Die Linke managed not to lose their vote to BSW. BSW probably picked up voters who would have gone to either AFD or Die Linke (kind of like voters in the early 1930s who switched between the KPD and NSDAP).
This is the future of European, and US elections. Undermining Russia is important to the rulers of Europe and the US, but not as much to workers and voters. You can see the sea change with Trump in office and socialist candidates like Bernie, who is getting huge crowds in Idaho and Oklahoma, or AOC and Zohran in New York. Young people can't afford houses, even programmers are having trouble since the 2022 layoffs - can you imagine the Amazin RTO in Seattle mandate would be possible in 2021? Wealth inequality leads to disruption, and political parties are made to appeal to the masses - either fascist or socialist. The political tendencies arising are no anomaly.
> You can see the sea change with Trump in office and socialist candidates like Bernie, who is getting huge crowds in Idaho and Oklahoma, or AOC and Zohran in New York.
I can see how Trump being in office is indisputable sign that populists are getting popular, but what does "huge crowds" cash out to? "crowds" should be as little as 1000 people. Combine that with to urban-rural and education polarization, and it doesn't seem too hard to get a 1000 college educated city dwellers to show up to a rally in Idaho.
This is a very superficial perspective. Disclaimer: I disdain both BSW and Afd.
You're basically falling into "the populist trap" in which they take a fact or something true and wrap it with a lot of BS and conspiracy theories. If you disregard the true core "just because it's from the wrong party" you give them political lever. We've seen that playbook working out for 10+ years.
De Masi did a great job as a financial expert in a parliamentary group, highly regarded by people over the whole political spectrum. I don't understand why he joined BSW but that doesn't weaken his point here.
And since we're already publicly discussing Trump blackmailing us with decommissioning US IT-Services without further notice, it is exactly right to talk about assets like gold being stored on US soil.
Extremists should never be ignored, especially in unstable times, but mentioning that these people are currently not in power and aren't even in the parliament is good context.
We are talking about national gold reserves, not some household items.
They exist for the reason to liquidate them in case of national emergencies/severe economic crises.
It's easier to liquidate these reserves when they are stored in trading hubs. That could be New York and London, or maybe even Shanghai, if China wasn't a systemic rival.
Storing all of them at "one's place" is a larger risk than splitting it up and storing them in several places, each with a different risk profile.
Usually russian propoganda is anything that stirs internal conflict. This does not mean that any internal conflict is russia propoganda, but they are very quick to try amplify any conflicts. This is KGB strategy of active measures (subversion). Read more here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Bezmenov
From World War II, the problem with keeping it at your own place was that, if someone overruns your country, your government-in-exile may be able to keep control of gold that is outside your country. Gold that is inside your country, however, is controlled by the invader. (And may be looted by them. Even if you later get your country back, the gold may be gone.)
That exposes you to the risk of the country holding it. But for much of recent history, the US was seen as a lesser risk than a Russian invasion. Whether that is still the way the risks balance... I think we each may hold our own opinion on that.
In this case, if you’re American. It signals a loss of trust in them which is an impossible absurdity if your a priori is that America is the eternal good and only future for us all. Can’t have that.
Both things can be true at once: the politicians talking can have legitimates arguments while being part of pro-Russian parties that don't have power in Germany and do not represent the German government opinion.
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.
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.
"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."
The US has a history of pulling this kind of stuff on its allies. To mind comes pulling out of Breton Woods. To those not aware, at some point in the past the US told the world: the dollar is as good as gold, you can convert it at any time you want, pinky promise. Later: lol joking, I'm keeping the gold, enjoy your dollars.
I wonder what it says about Europe that its leaders are still falling for these rugpulls. That they are uneducated is the most generous reading I can think of.
This is a little skewed based on my understanding. What actually happened to precipitate this was some European countries intentionally attempting to destabilize the dollar, gold having been pegged to a specific dollar amount. Obviously (to me, at least) such an action, threatening a country’s solvency, can’t just be allowed to go on, especially from the position of strength the US had in 1944 (literally a physical presence in 100% of the developed world’s ports at the time).
And let’s not forget that part of the deal was that the US would guarantee maritime security, which they have fulfilled for nearly 100 years. I would say that’s worth quite a bit more than whatever gold is in dispute, given that it allowed for the rise of globalization in the first place.
What really caused the end of the BW financial system was the inability of a world economy to be backed by gold in the first place. This coincided with the US leaving the gold standard in 1971, and this was only ~5-10 years after the instability began. So the system still enjoyed 15-20 years of operating as intended.
Probably because, with full knowledge and awareness of the history you describe - they still feel their gold is safer in NY than in their own country. Europe and it's governments have history too.
> I wonder what it says about Europe that its leaders are still falling for these rugpulls. That they are uneducated is the most generous reading I can think of.
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 their stocks. And the cost to US standing in enacting a refusal to NATO allies would be significant: You would expect future gold deposits to seek safer harbours for one, and the retention of the dollar as a hedge currency would be called into even more question.
In any case, it's a matter for law. On what grounds could the US refuse?
I wouldn't expect the US to care too much about things like "NATO allies" with a head of state that expressed repeated desire to leave NATO.
> 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.
>And the cost to US standing in enacting a refusal to NATO allies would be significant:
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.
You assume you are trying to run the bank profitable. But maybe you are just a very good friend, of another bank, that wants to see your bank bankrupt?
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. That's a lot of leverage.
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 have let a wanted suspect escape to Ukraine.
> A secret report by Germany’s Federal Audit Office leaked to the public last week states that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York refuses to allow Bundebank staff to even view the gold, triggering suspicions that the vaults are empty as well as calls for the gold to be shipped back to Berlin.
> The Fed implements stringent security controls, and refuses even Bundesbank staff full access to the German gold hoard. A team of personnel demanding access in 2007 were only allowed to visit the anteroom of the reserves, and when Bundebank auditors visited in May 2011 only one of nine compartments was opened for direct handling.
> The Federal Reserve’s fervent secrecy has engendered suspicion and concern, with some claiming that Germany’s gold has long ago disappeared or been lent out, and that only promissory notes of nominal value are sitting in the vault.
Note that Germany already finished bringing back 300 tons of gold from NYC and about the same amount from Paris in 2016, so this is a bit out of date (that whole transfer was completed ahead of schedule, which indicates, in hindsight, that probably not all the German gold in NYC was missing completely in 2011 :P).
Yes indeed, this article is outdated. But I posted it to counter the other comments here which are trying to draw links to Trump bring the reason that the Bundesbank don’t believe the US Fed. In fact, some in Germany have long mistrusted the Fed’s word on how much German gold is still actually in the vaults.
Here is a very fun, deeply speculative article from Zerohedge on this topic, from 2013:
> That's right, ladies and gentlemen, as a result of our cursory examination, we have learned that the world's largest private, and commercial, gold vault, that belonging once upon a time to Chase Manhattan, and now to JPMorgan Chase, is located, right across the street, and at the same level underground, resting just on top of the Manhattan bedrock, as the vault belonging to the New York Federal Reserve, which according to folklore is the official location of the biggest collection of sovereign, public gold in the world.
> At this point we would hate to be self-referential, and point out what one of our own commentators noted on the topic of the Fed's vault a year ago, namely that:
> Chase Plaza (now the Property of JPM) is linked to the facility via tunnel... I have seen it. The elevators on the Chase side are incredible. They could lift a tank.
> ... but we won't, and instead we will let readers make up their own mind why the the thousands of tons of sovereign gold in the possession of the New York Fed, have to be literally inches across, if not directly connected, to the largest private gold vault in the world.
A huge pile of gold in a secure location allows a government to operate in exile essentially forever without creating substantial debts for the home nation. It's not just "Italy's gold", it's "Contemporary Italy's gold".
Norway & the Netherlands moved their gold right before the Nazi invasions in the 40's, and were able to continue operating in exile as a result. Taiwan was established on the back of this tactic too, with the Chinese nationalists moving their gold out of the mainland into Taiwan when they realised they'd lose to the Communists.
Good idea, no counter-party exposure like if you used USD, and seems to have worked as an inflation/crisis hedge judging by how well Italy did in the euro-crisis ~2008.
I think people greatly overestimate the importance of gold. Gold cannot feed your people, or win a war or cure a disease. And in a crisis likely won't be useful for buying things that do.
Gold is maybe just a bit better than fiat currency. Even in terms of inflation, what would happen to the market value of gold (not in Dollar terms, but in terms of what it can buy) if the government decided to spend down $200B in gold to buy stuff with?
> And in a crisis likely won't be useful for buying things that do.
In a crisis, the value of gold holds more than that of the Papiermark, or even the US dollar - I can buy only one egg for the two I could have bought five years ago. Gold is uniform, portable, divisible and durable - useful attributes in a crisis, and worth more than Confederate dollars.
Gold is useful - for filling teeth, for electronic coating. It's value has stayed normal for thousands of years - although in times of inflation or crisis it might become a little overvalued temporarily as people flee to its safety. One could switch to other precious metals like silver, but this happens to them too.
> It's value has stayed normal for thousands of years - although in times of inflation or crisis it might become a little overvalued temporarily as people flee to its safety
That hasn't been the case after the Dollar and all other currencies were unpegged from gold. Adjusted by inflation it has been a very volatile asset in the last 50 years:
If you think the value of gold has remained stable, that's only because you're only measuring it during times and places of stability. See how much bread your ounce of gold buys you when there's no bread to buy. In a real crisis, the value of gold drops to near zero, just like fiat money does. No hungry person cares about electronic coating.
The best you can say is that gold is tangible, portable and universal. So you can bring it with you (often in the form of jewelry) as you flee, and it will likely return to value in some other time/place.
Everytime it comes up this fruitless educational effort appears, indicating a persistent irrational value, decoupled from reality . Which makes gold valuable even in conflict zones where irrationality abounds..
How? This issue is never money - it's always availability and logistics. In a regional crisis, what would you do with the gold? Is there anything to buy from outside the region? If so, how would you get it in? And does gold really help here, or would the other countries give it to you or lend it to you anyway?
Readit News
What I'm trying to say is that these two do not represent the German political landscape at all. They also, while on different ends of the left-right-spectrum, both only represent the pro-Russian minority of the German political landscape. This is not a debate happening in Germany right now and no other party has expressed support of any position.
Note that I'm not a German national but I live in Germany (former DDR / East) since 9 years.
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 many years, even while she still was a member of that party, has not held any views that could count as far-left.
The only reason some still put her in the far-left camp is that she was, looooong ago, a member of the communist platform in the PDS, the predecessor of the left party in Germany.
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.
See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Goldreserven#Diskussi... for some history.
Or some articles from around 10/2012:
https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/warum-das-deutsche-gold-i...
https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/bundesbank-soll-den-ganze...
https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/bundesbank-enthuellt-so-v...
(yooze trännzläyshun!1!!)
AfD has SO many connections to the Kremel. At least a big part of AfD is obiously influenced by russian agenda. BSW is a different topic. They might just align with many points russia likes, but you can not be sure either.
BSW or AfD with power in the Bundestag would be russias wet dream in regards to german politics.
They just take russian talking points and deliver them to their voters. It's just conveniently the same shit. And business trips to russia are just there to enjoy the scenery.
If they talk like russians, are present in russia, do interviews in russian media and don't condemn russian warcrimes...
Maybe it's just as easy?
Being against military expenditures and alliances when the other nation is arming like there is no tomorrow is being pro getting invaded.
It is not complicated.
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 back.
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, failures to deliver every single day on everything from stocks to government bonds, failing CDS'es and so on).
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 accounting [0,1,2,3,4]. Historically a currency (subset) has been pegged against rare minerals as a method of insurance against state or exchange rate instability, the flip side is that this restricts state spending and economic growth -- a growing economy needs a growing stock of currency to service loans and avoid debt driven deflation, as in e.g. the great depression [5,6,7]. This is why gold/silver standards are always episodic in world history [8]. Even in the fien-de-secle gold standard era the majority of currency in circulation had its origin in endogenous bank lending [9]. The typical stability and viability of a currency is from the fact that it can be used to procure real goods in the wider market, which in turn is because money contracts are legally enforced via social power relations, e.g. by a local government with the power make and enforce such rules. Incidentally this is why cryptocurrencies act as an investment asset and not as a currency, it lacks the enforcement component and it appreciates in value, which is never what you want for a currency [10].
[0] Bank of England, Money Creation in the Modern Economy https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m... [1] Deutsche Bundesbank, The role of banks, non- banks and the central bank in the money creation process https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/654284/df66c4444d065... [2] Richard A. Werner, A lost century in economics: Three theories of banking and the conclusive evidence https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105752191... [3] Augusto Graziani, The Monetary Theory of Production https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/monetary-theory-of-prod... [4] Basil J. Moore, Horizontalists and Verticalists https://www.cambridge.org/sc/universitypress/subjects/econom... [5] Scientific Origin, What Was the Gold Standard, How It Worked, and Why It Ended https://scientificorigin.com/the-gold-standard-what-it-was-h... [6] Irving Fisher, The Debt Deflation Theory of Great Depressions https://www.jstor.org/stable/1907327 [7] Hyman P. Minsky, The Debt Deflation Theory of Great Depressions https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/232609677.pdf [8] Marc Lavoie, Endogenous Money: Accomodationist https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287788671_Endogenou... [9] David Graeber, DEBT: The First 5000 Years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5,000_Years [10] Wikipedia, Silvio Gesell https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Gesell
Apologies for the lengthy response, it's a personal pet peeve.
Modern banking and finance, not just in the US, relies on fractional reserves. This is not a movie.
This is the future of European, and US elections. Undermining Russia is important to the rulers of Europe and the US, but not as much to workers and voters. You can see the sea change with Trump in office and socialist candidates like Bernie, who is getting huge crowds in Idaho and Oklahoma, or AOC and Zohran in New York. Young people can't afford houses, even programmers are having trouble since the 2022 layoffs - can you imagine the Amazin RTO in Seattle mandate would be possible in 2021? Wealth inequality leads to disruption, and political parties are made to appeal to the masses - either fascist or socialist. The political tendencies arising are no anomaly.
They were founded in 2013 and missed the seat by just 0.3%.
> BSW probably picked up voters who would have gone to either AFD
AFD-Voters were the lowest group they grew from[1]. They mostly harvest from the political left, but also some (probably non-extrem?) right voters.
[1] https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2025-02-23-BT-DE/analy...
I can see how Trump being in office is indisputable sign that populists are getting popular, but what does "huge crowds" cash out to? "crowds" should be as little as 1000 people. Combine that with to urban-rural and education polarization, and it doesn't seem too hard to get a 1000 college educated city dwellers to show up to a rally in Idaho.
You're basically falling into "the populist trap" in which they take a fact or something true and wrap it with a lot of BS and conspiracy theories. If you disregard the true core "just because it's from the wrong party" you give them political lever. We've seen that playbook working out for 10+ years.
De Masi did a great job as a financial expert in a parliamentary group, highly regarded by people over the whole political spectrum. I don't understand why he joined BSW but that doesn't weaken his point here.
And since we're already publicly discussing Trump blackmailing us with decommissioning US IT-Services without further notice, it is exactly right to talk about assets like gold being stored on US soil.
Extremists should never be ignored, especially in unstable times, but mentioning that these people are currently not in power and aren't even in the parliament is good context.
Dead Comment
They exist for the reason to liquidate them in case of national emergencies/severe economic crises. It's easier to liquidate these reserves when they are stored in trading hubs. That could be New York and London, or maybe even Shanghai, if China wasn't a systemic rival.
Storing all of them at "one's place" is a larger risk than splitting it up and storing them in several places, each with a different risk profile.
That exposes you to the risk of the country holding it. But for much of recent history, the US was seen as a lesser risk than a Russian invasion. Whether that is still the way the risks balance... I think we each may hold our own opinion on that.
This is as true in the middle east, europe, africa, south america or asia.
An example of:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
?
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.
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? :-)
I wonder what it says about Europe that its leaders are still falling for these rugpulls. That they are uneducated is the most generous reading I can think of.
And let’s not forget that part of the deal was that the US would guarantee maritime security, which they have fulfilled for nearly 100 years. I would say that’s worth quite a bit more than whatever gold is in dispute, given that it allowed for the rise of globalization in the first place.
What really caused the end of the BW financial system was the inability of a world economy to be backed by gold in the first place. This coincided with the US leaving the gold standard in 1971, and this was only ~5-10 years after the instability began. So the system still enjoyed 15-20 years of operating as intended.
Stupid Atlanticists
I have doubts the current US administration would let them without some sort of retaliation (e.g. more tariffs)
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 their stocks. And the cost to US standing in enacting a refusal to NATO allies would be significant: You would expect future gold deposits to seek safer harbours for one, and the retention of the dollar as a hedge currency would be called into even more question.
In any case, it's a matter for law. On what grounds could the US refuse?
> 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.
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.
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. That's a lot of leverage.
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 have let a wanted suspect escape to Ukraine.
> The Fed implements stringent security controls, and refuses even Bundesbank staff full access to the German gold hoard. A team of personnel demanding access in 2007 were only allowed to visit the anteroom of the reserves, and when Bundebank auditors visited in May 2011 only one of nine compartments was opened for direct handling.
> The Federal Reserve’s fervent secrecy has engendered suspicion and concern, with some claiming that Germany’s gold has long ago disappeared or been lent out, and that only promissory notes of nominal value are sitting in the vault.
https://www.mining.com/germans-begin-to-demand-their-gold-ba...
Here is a very fun, deeply speculative article from Zerohedge on this topic, from 2013:
https://archive.is/dVIK3
> That's right, ladies and gentlemen, as a result of our cursory examination, we have learned that the world's largest private, and commercial, gold vault, that belonging once upon a time to Chase Manhattan, and now to JPMorgan Chase, is located, right across the street, and at the same level underground, resting just on top of the Manhattan bedrock, as the vault belonging to the New York Federal Reserve, which according to folklore is the official location of the biggest collection of sovereign, public gold in the world.
> At this point we would hate to be self-referential, and point out what one of our own commentators noted on the topic of the Fed's vault a year ago, namely that:
> Chase Plaza (now the Property of JPM) is linked to the facility via tunnel... I have seen it. The elevators on the Chase side are incredible. They could lift a tank.
> ... but we won't, and instead we will let readers make up their own mind why the the thousands of tons of sovereign gold in the possession of the New York Fed, have to be literally inches across, if not directly connected, to the largest private gold vault in the world.
Edit: more details about the underground vaults- https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/keys-gold-vaul...
Norway & the Netherlands moved their gold right before the Nazi invasions in the 40's, and were able to continue operating in exile as a result. Taiwan was established on the back of this tactic too, with the Chinese nationalists moving their gold out of the mainland into Taiwan when they realised they'd lose to the Communists.
Gold is maybe just a bit better than fiat currency. Even in terms of inflation, what would happen to the market value of gold (not in Dollar terms, but in terms of what it can buy) if the government decided to spend down $200B in gold to buy stuff with?
In a crisis, the value of gold holds more than that of the Papiermark, or even the US dollar - I can buy only one egg for the two I could have bought five years ago. Gold is uniform, portable, divisible and durable - useful attributes in a crisis, and worth more than Confederate dollars.
Gold is useful - for filling teeth, for electronic coating. It's value has stayed normal for thousands of years - although in times of inflation or crisis it might become a little overvalued temporarily as people flee to its safety. One could switch to other precious metals like silver, but this happens to them too.
That hasn't been the case after the Dollar and all other currencies were unpegged from gold. Adjusted by inflation it has been a very volatile asset in the last 50 years:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Gold_pri...
The best you can say is that gold is tangible, portable and universal. So you can bring it with you (often in the form of jewelry) as you flee, and it will likely return to value in some other time/place.