US Treasuries Blacklisted by the German State of Baden-Württemberg | Hacker News Reader

US Treasuries Blacklisted by the German State of Baden-Württemberg

bloomberg.com

21 pointssuper25631 comments

"[T]he new environmental, social and good governance filters have resulted in US Treasuries ending up on an investing blacklist, due to America’s failure to ratify a number of treaties in areas including women’s rights and controversial weapons."

Women have equal legal rights in the U.S. In any case, I think laws about womens' rights in the U.S. should be changed based on what Americans think, not what German investors think.

But on the other hand German investors can choose where to put their money based on what they think.

Yup and the US can pull its military bases out of Germany as well as remove troops from the European theater more generally and let them defend themselves.

I thought they basically did out of one or two with a (large) hospital and airbase…. The troops went elsewhere and the equipment came home. Googling says 35k troops in Germany, but doesn’t break down by service arm.

Edit: without the nato airbases it’s a long flight trying to redeploy from N America to, say, the Middle East. Having client states partway keeps troops secure in transit and provides a place to organize/redeploy.

Bring them home, they don't like our weapons.

Edit: US troops have no business in the ME. The only business they have in Europe is defending Europeans and as far as the Germans are concerned they feel the way we engage in warfare is inappropriate.

It seems various us governments have not shared this opinion in the past.

Those bases are there now mostly to be there in the future.

The US wants a large military airport, hospital, warehouses and supporting infrastructure at a location where it can be trusted to remain there for twenty years or more, because building such things takes time. There aren't a lot of suitable locations within, say, three hours of flying time from the present facilities. So they're going to stay.

Really? I was under the impression that Poland wanted the US to establish permanent bases on its territory and that they would make most of the American presence in Germany superfluous. (The Russians do not like this at all and the outcome of the current conflict may affect the PL-US cooperation. But that's not really the point here.) Maybe someone can correct me but I understood that the base in Ramstein is the only American base in Germany that is hard to replace because of a favourable position to communicate with satellites and provide nearly instantaneous communication between multiple theatres. Hard for me to say if 1'000 km east in Poland is less favourable.

It's also an open secret at this point that American atomic gravity bombs are stored in bases in Italy, Belgium, UK and Germany. The current Polish government doesn't seem to be opposed to doing the same in Poland. Plans to maintain the American nuclear umbrella may still involve Germany regardless of Poland's decisions.

Sure they want a base, but how much would you bet that they wouldn't try to use the base for political purposes once the Americans have invested too much to walk away? The planners in the Pentagon want their bases for American purposes and only American purposes.

That would be an 8B USD savings for the USA

https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/germany....

That's it? That's nothing. Totally worth weakening your alliance and power projection for that.

I thought US bases are there to keep Germans in check, not to defend them...

The bases are in West Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_ins...

Are you saying they were trying to keep the West Germans in check after WW2? Nothing else going on in the area at the time (and arguably still), towards the east? Topkek

Well, to be honest, both World Wars were Germany's fault, so it kind of made sense keeping them in check and making sure they won't try for the third time. Of course Soviet Union then quickly overshadowed them as a threat. Right now that NATO expanded to the East, Germany are not frontier country anymore, so the only way American troops make sense there is again, as occupying army.

I checked the wikipedia article on World War I [1] and fail to see how it can be attributed to Germany individually.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I

> The first decade of the 20th century saw increasing diplomatic tension between the European great powers. This reached a breaking point on 28 June 1914, when a Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Austria-Hungary held Serbia responsible, and declared war on 28 July. Russia came to Serbia's defence, and by 4 August, defensive alliances had drawn in Germany, France, and Britain, with the Ottoman Empire joining the war in November.

And the madness of WWII was in no small way related to the oddly inequitable treaty of Versailles formulated to reflect French and British demands.

>Are you saying they were trying to keep the West Germans in check after WW2?

Absolutely, they also had to do various clean up tasks. Executions, Trials, political policing, etc. I don't think there is any kind of reasonable debate that stationing troops in Germany wasn't for the interest of the US in West Germany.

Of course equally true is that as relationships between the former Allies deteriorated Germany became the frontline of that conflict and the focus shifted. The remilitarized German Armies on both sides became quite important as they both would be the first line of defense against any aggressor.

The troops are there to give the US an advantage in Europe not to defend Germany lol.

Well Germany must have been mistaken then to voice against Trump’s plan to withdraw some troop in 2020.

https://www.brecorder.com/news/1002286/trump-plan-to-slash-u...

The Germans are using any plausible excuse to cut out American influence and leverage. This is a total red herring. Also see that Belgium suspended FATCA reporting in the name of GDPR. America will have to bomb Europe into submission soon to maintain control and relevance.

Russia will probably beat them to it.

Europe is being squeezed from all sides; there is zero doubt.

>The Germans are using any plausible excuse to cut out American influence and leverage.

One of the most absurd statements I have ever heard. Especially when even suggesting that Germany has any relations with Russia, is near criminal and all government parties are heavily dedicated to the alliance, especially the greens.

> One of the most absurd statements I have ever heard

Then you must be living in a reality distortion field. Nobody is making references to Russian ties. This is something you came up with because it is what came to your mind instinctively. We are focusing on the real occupation force in this discussion. Germany has been occupied by the United States since World War 2 and has 21 American military bases on its soil. This year marks the 78th year of the occupation.

How does this imply Germany wanting to cut loose when the German government is perfectly fine with that?

This is interpretation. The ERA failed to pass so as we’ve seen recently interpretation can be changed.

The due process clauses of the 5th and 14th amendments apply equally to men and women, seeing as how both are persons.

And what if it's Saudi Arabian's laws about women? (I wonder what their laws in regards to abortion are).

I think the countries are free to make the laws, and investors are free to choose to invest their money in opressive theocracies or not...

Treaties are about Americas choice in the global community. Unless you think these treaties are some how a lower standard of care

Though to be fair, it's not in Germany's financial best interest to exchange Euros for Dollars.

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