Denmark Offers to Buy U.S. | Hacker News Reader

Denmark Offers to Buy U.S.

newyorker.com

Reading the title combined with the url I knew who the author was without having read it yet, it's gold. I absolutely love his reports. Maybe should have appended (Andy Borowitz) in the title though, would certainly have spared few bad reactions.

Probably based on https://grapevine.is/news/2019/08/20/greenland-considering-b... (also read the article footer)

I always appreciate a little humor sometimes. The Borowitz Report is always nice to check on every so often.

This is so stupid. It's not like USA has never bought territory from other nations. Alaska, the Louisiana purchase.

We've even bought territory from Denmark for FUCKS sakes.

> Denmark sold the Danish Virgin Islands to the United States for $25 million in gold.

I find it so weird that so many people seem to find the idea of buying Greenland to be somehow outrageous.

It’s a horribly depressing island with like 50k people, the US could easily hand everyone a million bucks and a passport.

It's kind of outrageous in the sense that the value of the resources that could be pulled out of it is many times higher than anything the US is willing to offer, and Denmark knows that.

That's right, you could have said, "hey greenlanders, if you'll join the US we'll give each of you a million dollars and a passport". But that's not what you did and you're judged for what you actually did, not for what you hypothetically could.

Who's "you"? The US? Not me, anyway.

>judged for what you actually did

Which is what exactly? I don't think they actually got around to doing anything before it was leaked that they were discussing the idea.

It’s true that’s America bought the Virgin Islands of us, but it was mainly because the offer at the time looked like this:

“You can sell us the Virgin Islands for money, or we can take the Virgins Islands from you for free.”

America has actually offered to buy Greenland of us before, at one point offering us part of Alaska as a trade. The thing is though, Greenland isn’t ours to sell. It’s not Denmark, it’s part of something we call rigsfælleskabet, and in there lies a clause stating that Greenland can become its own nation when it’s ready to do so.

>or we can take the Virgins Islands from you

OK, but that was during the First World War, and the US had a legitimate fear that Germany would seize the islands for a submarine base. Also the Danish public approved the sale in a referendum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1916_Danish_West_Indian_Island...

> OK, but that was during the First World War

That was kind of my point though. The guy I was replying to was using this particular sale to justify why selling Greenland in 2019 wouldn’t be ridiculous.

Anyone think that the end game of trump buying Greenland is to turn it into a "Escape from New York" type of internment camp for Illegals?

it would have to be relatively cheap given the amount of debt you'd have to take on as part of the transaction. Really dilutes the value of the equity.

Edit: if anyone can work out a fair market value for, say, the lower 48 states I'd be more than happy to be shown to be wrong, though.

The US sells debt all day long, so what's the problem?

Maybe we could make Denmark a deal for a few large metropolitan areas, like Detroit and San Fran. Let's see how the famed Danish model works on a larger scale!

Speaking as a Danish citizen, I feel this was Trump's masterplan all along. It would be a terrible deal for Denmark ;)

USexit?

Is this real? Did a Danish spokesperson go rogue?

No. Andy Borowitz writes satirical articles for the New Yorker.

I didn't find it satirical at all.

Thanks, the story read like something from the onion, but I saw no indications of satire around the site.

The article referenced literally says "SATIRE FROM THE BOROWITZ REPORT" in capital red letters right above the title.

> Andy Borowitz is a Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes The Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news

“Satire from The Borowitz Report”

When I read the first story about Greenland, I thought it was this type of satire.

I was thinking "this satire is so subtle, some people might actually believe this is real".

As real as The Onion can be. In truth, sometimes even more than reality itself.

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