Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries | Hacker News Reader

Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries

reuters.com

776 pointsmythical_39806 comments

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 goods, a stable financial system... this bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition... recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as a weapon. Tariffs as leverage ..."

That sounds like a rhetoric for better negotiating power against Trump. Chinese are our adversaries (EDIT: enemies, they actually bankroll Russian invasion and supply weapons) and I hope president of France understands that.

Genuinely: why? I feel like they were our geopolitical adversary by proxy cause of USA, but is that still true?

> That sounds like a rhetoric for better negotiating power against Trump.

In the Canadian example at least the deal is signed. It's not just words.

> Chinese are our adversaries

Increasingly the US is a European adversary. They are literally threatening to invade the territory of a European country! China isn't doing that.

Very easy to dismiss it as the rantings of a madman but no-one is holding him back. People didn't take the tariff bluster seriously and then it became very real.

I really don't get the Greenland thing. Is there some 4D chess reason for it? The US already has military bases there and could probably have as many more as they wanted if they just asked nicely. So the whole security thing is a pretext

IMO the reason is that he is a senile old man lashing out at the world. I really don't think there's a lot to it beyond that. Everyone else goes along with it because they know the administration's entire legitimacy comes from Trump and if/when he's gone the whole house of cards will collapse. That or they have their own focuses (e.g. Stephen Miller) and are happy for Greenland to be a distraction while they get on with their own stuff.

No one's really put out a strong case for it like that. You could argue it's a lot of land that's underpopulated and might be valuable in twenty years with global warming or something?

But the simpler answer is that Trump seems to personally like the idea of adding a big landmass to the US for ego reasons. He talked about it last term too with the same excuses mostly.

Probably to indelibly put his name on a piece of the US. How did we get Greenland? Trump.

It's the Mercator projection's fault

There have been mumblings about mineral wealth, and about strategic bases. None of them really make a lick of sense.

It does not look as if it's serious. But this is a deeply unserious administration, so it's hard to guess.

If they want mineral rights those will be arranged easily with basic diplomacy and investment. They had 17 military bases there during the Cold War and that contract stands. Greenland is under NATO article 5 protection. There is no rational net-positive reason for this no matter what dimension you look in

Possibly to deter Greenland from becoming independent, wt least without guarantees it will stay in NATO and economically within the western sphere.

if there were more valuable reasons, talking publicly about it would only drive up the price.

> Very easy to dismiss it as the rantings of a madman but no-one is holding him back.

Does anyone really need to? We're not getting Greenland and everyone knows it, ESPECIALLY the people screeching the most about it. Trump's whole thing is giving the media lots of fresh meat to go wild over so they're distracted. I'm sure it's some sort of Sun Tzu thing he read about and has latched on to.

However, this one in particular is really baffling in that he can't let it go and it just makes everything worse.

> People didn't take the tariff bluster seriously and then it became very real.

I mean, not really? There's been some tariffs here and there but nowhere near what was originally claimed, things have been walked back and forth multiple times, etc. That's really what's caused the most damage, the uncertainty moreso than the actual tariffs. And this is also something he's particular fixated on and I wish he'd drop since it's obvious it's not going to have the intended outcome.

> Does anyone really need to?

It feels like the rest of the post answers your own question. Yes, Vance and basically everyone below him know full well that the US acquiring Greenland would be utterly pointless and utterly disastrous.

But he won't let it go, and in the mean time he's doing lots of stuff with real world consequences like tariffs and incinerating alliances to try to get people to agree with his stupid idea. Can't even use it as a "negotiation chip" when its the fruits of actual completed negotiations being threatened and the US could put any military installations in Greenland they wanted if they said "please" instead of "we are going to take you over".

Chinese are Canadian adversaries mostly because of the US. The US more or less forced Canada to hold Meng Wanzhou, which caused a huge rise in diplomatic tensions and cost Canada billions. Some thanks we got for that.

Doesn't China own most of the real estate in Canada.

Did USA cause that

>Doesn't China own most of the real estate in Canada.

No.

Weird whataboutery

For a time there was a large amount of Chinese money fleeing to Canada and the US, buying up coastland and other high value residential. Circa 2018ish, that reversed due to Xi Ping's mandates. Near Seattle, the Bellevue luxury market bottom fell out over a month long period. AFAIK, it never fully returned to the hey day levels of spending.

US buyers owns like 10x more real estate in Canada in $$$ terms than PRC buyers, and US tends to buy the strategic stuff like commercial/industry, something like 50% of all foreign controlled assets in Canada is controlled by US. VS PRC mostly buying houses, foreigners own like 5% of housing stock in Canada.

> Doesn't China own most of the real estate in Canada.

No. Why would you claim something that is easily refuted? 75-80% of all residences in Canada are owner occupied.

This is definitely the biggest incident, but there's also been supposed Chinese meddling in Canadian politics and establishing foreign police stations which allegedly were threatening people in Canada.

I'm Italian/Polish, China has never done anything to me in history.

Whereas I remember multiple times our allies pillaging and colonizing the country.

Not a fan of their espionage, lack of IP respect and human rights record (albeit we should also look at ourselves on the last one as well). But those are things that could've been challenged diplomatically through economical levers imho.

The only reason China suddenly became the enemy is because their GDP growth put them as the world's biggest economy in few decades and Washington wasn't happy with this.

> I hope president of France understands that

I'm sure he does.

But only a fool would piss off the Chinese.

Both in Macron's own country and his region, there will be hundreds of companies who are already cut-off from Russia, Africa, Middle-East and Central Asia due to geopolitics. China doesn't care and is busy selling there.

So what's left is the remainder of Asia, which is China's home turf where they are already ultra-competitive as they have the geographic advantage.

And of course there will be companies in Macron's country and region using Chinese manufacturing or otherwise engaged in Chinese JVs to get access to sell to the Chinese market.

So for Macron to go full-Trump on China would be a textbook case of cutting your nose to spite your face. The Chinese are masters at playing the long game and the West needs to be careful about knee-jerk short-termism actions.

Canada needs cheaper cars than US manufacturers want to provide. US brand cars have all been going higher dollar and further up market in recent years.

Quebec is famous for the "Quebec Special". Cars with manual everything. No AC. Manual windows. Completely stripped down to be as affordable/disposable as possible. Also the roads are absolute shit, they never wash off the salt, there used to be no inspections and title-washing is common practice there.

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-...

The Hyundai my parents have been driving for the past 7 years does not have AC nor automatic windows :). They live in Montreal, and hate the lack of AC during the summer, but it is what it is - car is cheaper without AC.

They are certainly going to get them! Apparently zero tariffs on Chinese made EVs coming into Canada, so they will have EV's of at least same quality as Tesla, but half price (e.g. see Marques Brownlee's recent Xiaomi review).

> Canada needs cheaper cars than US manufacturers want to provide.

So does the U.S.

That's an opinion. One I agree with in principal, but not reflected in sales figures.

Also I'd be willing to bet that if interest rates dropped, car purchasing would skyrocket even at current prices.

People in the U.S. have to own a car. There are no inexpensive options any longer.

Car loans would be ticking time bomb on the U.S. economy. All it takes are waves of layoffs and therefore droves of unemployed people saddled with car loans.

US car sales are pretty consistent between 12mil & 17mil per year going back to the mid 70s, which spans a few recessions at this point...

> One I agree with in principal, but not reflected in sales figures.

In the absence of perfect competition and perfect information, one cannot infer from the absence of sales that there is no demand for item X.

It's not pure symbolism. The most effective way to reduce the global threat the US is appearing to pose more as of late, is to hit the dollar. The US economy is in a very precarious state, tensions along political ideology lines are high, and it would not take much more than a worsening of economic conditions plus a catalyst event to kick off armed unrest within the country. 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.

> Danish pension fund AkademikerPension said on Tuesday it would sell off its holding of U.S. Treasuries, worth some $100 million,

> AkademikerPension has in total 164 billion Danish crowns ($25.74 billion)

So they are moving about 0.4% of their investment.

Not pure symbolism, but $100 million is really nothing when we're talking about US treasuries. In the past decade, China has reduced their holding by about $600B.

Think of it as a bowshot. There are many more such 10 to 100 billion funds and they can move at the drop of a hat if they have to.

Can. Won't. There is no safer place to stash money in the world. Nobody buys treasuries for the fun of it. They do it since that is the safest place to stash money long term.

That's your opinion, which you are of course welcome to.

People buy treasuries because they expect a return. If a party is threatening to get into a shooting war with you your expectations of a return drop significantly. This then causes that party to protect their investment, the last one to defect will hold the bag. The US is signalling on all wavelengths that it is no longer the safest place to stash money, long term or otherwise.

ok, let's run with your theory. Where does one safely stash a small-ish sum like ~$100B now?

You are so far out from understanding why pension funds put money in foreign government paper that I'm not sure where to begin explaining it. But the key is simply portfolio diversification. Institutional investors have access to a very large number of options on where, how and for how long they want to park their money that it isn't some kind of forced move to put their money in US Treasuries.

It's just a way to hedge their bets. In the larger scheme of things $100B isn't all that much (it may be to you, but even a small trading desk of a mid sized bank or multinational, say Royal Dutch Shell, or such) have access to that kind of money. They are not going to take the chance that Donald Trump on Monday morning, after eating a bad burger the night before, decides to unleash the might of the US military on their territory and be left holding the bag.

One downside of running a trade deficit with the rest of the world is that they have you by the short and curlies; if they dump your paper you will have to buy it back as fast as they can dump it to avoid a crash of your currency. That can get expensive really quickly.

The US was a safe place with consistent returns for decades. Now the US has increased risk. It isn't a calculation of "where do we put $100B", it's a calculation of "what is the balance of managing risk and returns".

Canada and Australia are low risk, but don't have the returns of the US. Brasil, Argentina, have higher risk.

The allocations get spread across different risk profiles, and the money gets spread across different investments. Of course, this is on the assumption the majority of this money stays in Treasuries. These large funds have options beyond that. It's a mathematical calculation where every asset in the world is an option. $100B can be spread around pretty easily I'd think.

> They do it since that is the safest place to stash money long term.

Only historically. The calculus is rapidly changing. If the US can't even respect sovereign territory of friendly countries, it doesn't inspire trust that they would repay debt.

The assumption that treasuries is safe depends upon the guarantor (the US government) being reliable. Currently this is ahistorically far from being the case and therefore people are investigating other places to park capital.

If the US starts a war, they immediately collapse down the safety rankings.

Also there are other tax havens.

Which is why the ECB should start a programme to issue about €5 trillion in new bonds as an alternative to USD treasuries.

IMHO.

I’m curious when people make comments like this, do they actually live in the US and believe this or has the media environment gotten so bad in Europe+ that people have no clue what’s real or not?

Maybe you'd trust Blackrock's CEO instead? I live in the US and I have rotated away from US equities and treasuries to derisk from volatility of poor governance (both this administration and long term fiscal policy).

BlackRock CEO delivers blunt warning on US national debt - https://www.thestreet.com/investing/blackrock-ceo-delivers-b... - January 18th, 2026

The U.S. Deficit Will 'Overwhelm This Country': BlackRock CEO Larry Fink - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4d1GzgnhkI

I don’t disagree that our fiscal situation is unsustainable. I’m curious specifically about the people envisioning (with barely disguised glee) the US erupting into a civil war within 5 years, as they seem somewhat to have lost touch with reality.

In longitudinal surveys, typically, about 5% of folks elect the "some men want to watch the world burn" option. I cannot speak to the glee component you mention, I know these people exist, but they are a minority. I can speak to the ongoing political polarization that treats national politics as a sport and is avoiding course correcting fiscal policy trajectory. And this fiscal policy is going to lead to widening wealth inequality, a continuation of a K shaped economic recovery, and pushing the electorate to more extreme options besides the voting booth. No one is "winning", there is no moderate middle ground any more, and I don't see how this trajectory will change. Thanks Gingrich (who set us on this path decades ago)!

Nearly 40% of Young Americans Say Political Violence Is Acceptable in Certain Circumstances, Harvard Poll Finds - https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/12/4/hpop-poll-polit... - December 4th, 2025

Americans say politically motivated violence is increasing, and they see many reasons why - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/23/americans... - October 23rd, 2025

What could easily happen much sooner than 5 years is an incident that gives Trump an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act, and send federal troops - not just National Guard - into blue US cities. Things could go a lot of different ways after that, but something resembling civil war - or a smaller-scale guerilla war - is very much in the realm of possibility.

Be wary of normalcy bias, it's a big part of what lets the Trump admin get away with what its doing. People think "oh that can't happen"... until it does.

> I’m curious specifically about the people envisioning (with barely disguised glee) the US erupting into a civil war within 5 years, as they seem somewhat to have lost touch with reality.

The MN governor has called up their National Guard to help local law enforcement. The Pentagon is readying troops as well, presumably to help federal officials (ICE).

If both sides think they are following lawful orders, and neither side will give, what do you think will happen? (I have no answers.)

Further, there are folks that want a conflict because the West has become too decadent or something, and some conflict is needed to toughen up (?):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment

To note, I believe it's possible the ~1500 troops staging to Minnesota are not to assist with ICE operations, but to be air lifted via the 133rd Airlift Wing to Greenland. If interested in pursuing this, task some commercial satellite imaging.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/133rd_Airlift_Wing

"Pentagon readies 1,500 troops for potential Minnesota deployment, officials say":

* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/18/pentagon-ala...

What they say cannot be trusted, based on all available evidence, so you must infer the truth from actions.

The troops that are being readied are actually the 11th Airborne Division:

* https://time.com/7347191/minnesota-army-troops-standby/

whose deputy commander is a Canadian, as a part of an exchange program:

* https://11thairbornedivision.army.mil/dcgo/

so I'm not sure how sending him to Greenland is going to work.

If Trump decides to go pull the plug on invading Greenland an uses the 11th Airborne, McBride would, I would assume, at a minimum, be relieved of his duties with the 11th Airborne and sent back to Canada, with either a subordinate ops staff officer or the Deputy Commanding General (Support) or some combination filling in for the duties of the Deputy Commanding General (Operations).

Depending on the details of timing of the operation and the US-Canada diplomatic situation as a result, what happens after he is relieved might not be as simple as a return to Canada, he might conceivably even end up as a POW.

Federal supremacy will win, the MN governor will not tell local LE directly to prevent federal agents enforcing federal law. I understand that law is not popular among many right now, but that is how it will play out.

There will not be civil war unless the military truly comes to assist in a Trump attempt to take power in 2028, which I think is very unlikely.

The US military spent $4T-$6T in Iraq and Afghanistan, losing ~7k soldiers and ~52k wounded [1]. The US has one of the highest per capita of gun ownership and less than a million soldiers on US soil [2] [3]. Federal supremacy is based on the concept of the US military winning a conflict when they haven't won one since WW2. Force projection via military hardware and popping into Venezuela to extract its leader is a far different proposition than urban combat where your home and family is on the same soil.

I very much hope civil war is unlikely, but the federal government is vastly undermanned if a conflict occurs on US soil.

(have four siblings who have decades in combined military tours across all service branches except the coast guard, and I leverage them as a resource collectively in these matters)

[1] https://www.fcnl.org/updates/2016-10/costs-war-numbers

[2] https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-troops-are-in-the-us-m...

[3] https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-are-in-the-us-...

> The US military spent $4T-$6T in Iraq and Afghanistan, losing ~7k soldiers and ~52k wounded

Denmark and the UK (to mention just two countries) also lost men fighting alongside America in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Look how they are being repaid.

Here is a rather sobering video from a British perspective: The Prime Minister responding to JD Vance by simply reading out in Parliament, the names of British soldiers who died supporting American operations.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/pm-honours-uk-troops-killed-123537...

In what world are Iraq / Afghanistan good "comps" for the US military's performance in a civil war? Those countries had a virtually endless supply of young men who wanted to die for their cause, due to religious fanaticism, and were willing to do anything to make that happen. Who is going to fulfill that role in this hypothetical civil war? The US military was also faced with 10,000 km long supply lines and extremely rugged terrain where no one had any local knowledge.

> prevent federal agents enforcing federal law

Why is it that every normalizing "this is fine" commenter invariably drops into the same nonsense about "enforcing federal law" after a few short comments? The problem in Minnesota isn't that [some] federal laws are being enforced. Rather it's that federal law enforcement "officers" are abusing their immunity to work as lawless terror squads, abducting citizens and attacking protestors, backed up by a demented chief executive who has no respect for our American ideals of individual liberty or limited government.

> > the US erupting into a civil war within 5 years, as they seem somewhat to have lost touch with reality.

When your material needs are satisfied then only ideological battles remain to be won.

And having lots of material stuff you have plenty to throw at the enemy.

It's already happening. People are willing to forego their material needs and harm the country and themselves to 'own' and defeat the other side.

The only hope is that the ideological wars become so scattered and around so many topics and centers of power that it's not 70m people vs. 70m people or that the ideological wars are slow that people realize that they come with a loss of quality of life and material wealth and rebalance towards the latter instead of pursuing the 'owning the other side' doctrine

I think effectively all empirics go against this notion, the only real counterexample I can think of is the Troubles. People living comfortable lives don't want to die and the ideology usually routes around that: look how morality has been evolving wrt the notion of 'sacrifice for the common good' - and we expect people will sacrifice their lives for their perception of the common good? doubt it

> > People living comfortable lives don't want to die

Trump is the prime example , why did he decide to abandon the lifestyle afforded by his 500 million dollar net worth to pursue a job where 27% of his predecessors where shot at? Abandoning comfortable life to risk death.

Why don't rich celebrities quit after the first death threat letter, when they already have a huge bag of money?

The material wealth at the extremes is a recipe for unstable and unpredictable behavior , not for calm and collected behavior. People engage in ego battles and fall in love with their ideas and are willing to go to war for them as in a world of abundance they are the only thing that matters in order to 'win'.

The most abstract things (interest rates ring a bell) become personal because ideas about them were conceived in self reflection during the infinite hours of thinking and wondering free time afforded by material abundance, killing off ideas becomes akin to killing part of self and becomes unacceptable to the ego.

This Is true for individuals and countries alike.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

>Fink is still a big believer in the U.S. economy and argues things are looking mostly constructive at this point. He feels the bull story is still intact, but its durability matters a lot more.

So do you believe him? Let me guess: you'll pick and choose the parts

I agree with his statement you quote. I believe that the US still has some growth ahead purely out of existing demographics and population, but that due to go forward geopolitics and global trade reconfigurations, more growth will be had internationally than in the US over the next 5-10 years (and this is the same guidance I share with the HNW individuals I advise from geopolitical safety and portfolio strategy perspectives). Where has most growth been in the US recently? The Mag 7, AI, data centers, etc. Will this growth last? No one knows. What happens when it stops? Sadness.

Global markets outperform the U.S. in 2025 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DERutj8lfY - December 30th, 2025

2026 Outlook: International Stocks and Economy - https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/international-stock-marke... - December 9th, 2025

(not investing advice, I am simply very curious and a degenerate gambler)

Warnings about the deficit are spot on. It is a safe bet that the country with government that spends 50% more than it takes in as taxes will not give above inflation return on its government debt. As a side note, most of the "Western world" is in the same boat (spending way above the long-term ability to pay, so eventually will have to default-by-inflation on bondholders).

But I am sure the poster you are responding to was criticizing the take about US splintering into parts due to armed unrest within the next 5 years. Which sounds completely nonsensical to me as well.

I'm not gonna watch a video but did you even read that article before you linked to it?

"Fink is still a big believer in the U.S. economy and argues things are looking mostly constructive at this point. He feels the bull story is still intact, but its durability matters a lot more."

It's the human equivilent of AI slop.

Do you have any criticisms to the parent comment? As an American, they seem pretty spot on to the current climate.

I'd argue we've never been closer to civil war than we are today[0], primarily due to trumps regime invading cities around the country, kidnapping citizens utilizing a bounty program, and killing people in concentration camps.

Ediot: [0] - Since the last civil war. I thought that was obvious, but it seems like it isn't.

We've literally had a civil war so I'd say your argument is a bit off the mark.

Correct, I assumed others would understand I meant since the last civil war. Edited the comment to clear up my intent. Thank you.

It's still absurd. Today isn't close to what we saw during the depression or the 70s or desegregation or the Rodney King riot. Besides that, there's no plausible fault line in the military or any sort of ethnic or religious or regional fault line where two sides could form to fight each other.

I think we might have surpassed the Rodney King era but I wasn't alive then. Broadly agree with you otherwise.

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.

It is, but I get the sentiment of these comments. If the US infighting they will leave us alone.

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.

> losing a major trading partner never tanked an economy

The major trading partner that has been placing heavy tariffs on everyone but Russia? I just want to confirm we are talking about the same one.

> did you not even notice Vance and Musk’s support of afd ?

This is exactly the sort of problem we are talking about.

I don't think it's all that nutty, considering that large regional blocs in the United States basically voted against all this and have less than zero desire to be dragged along for the ride, having our lives ruined for someone else's insanity.

The last Civil War in the U.S. had States banding together and separating from the Union.

The closest the U.S. is to a Civil War now is akin to a Cold Civil War with, for example, states gerrymandering their Representative districts. Or the Pacific states joining together for West Coast Health Alliance. Did I read rumblings about separate trade deals with foreign countries?

Protesters battling ICE in the streets would not, in my opinion, count as Civil War. Civil unrest? Sure.

EDIT: this always turns out to be one of my unpopular opinions. Oh well.

This is truth since it was fact-checked by leading independent EU fact-checkers.

It’s wishcasting. Some people just want to see dead Americans.

On the contrary. The ones that want to see dead Americans are currently sitting in the Whitehouse. Mostly because it won't be them on the receiving end of it and they get to plunder the country. Smaller cake, but more for me seems to be their motto.

I think perhaps multiple people can want to see dead Americans. There is definitely a subtext of glee in this discussion of modern American civil war imo.

Not with the Europeans that I know, they are all absolutely aghast at every single murder. It is one of the reasons EU countries are reluctant about participating in any war, they always hope to avoid it (and as a result sometimes get much larger ones...).

Hard for me to see anyone who says an American civil war is a best case scenario as not cheering for American deaths and I'm skeptical that this was written by an American as it sounds far too out of touch and 'wishcasty' as someone else said.

I don't know exactly who you are referring to, which article/comment/?? do you refer to?

You are skeptical that it was written by an American, but you have no proof that it was not?

Do you know who did write it?

Those guys in the Whitehouse, are they not American?

They are the ones steering you straight off a cliff and quite literally anything - including civil war - could happen as a result of that.

I'm referring to the initial comment I replied to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46693230 ie. the comment this entire thread has been about.

> you have no proof that it was not?

In other comments on their profile, they refer to Americans as if they are someone other than themselves. Also, the belief that a civil war splitting up the US is likely within the next 5 years seems like a pretty big giveaway.

> Those guys in the Whitehouse, are they not American?

As I said, multiple people can want bad things. I'm painfully aware of what the current admin is doing to our global reputation and what they are risking with their current games - and there are still 3 years on the clock.

Take care.

Whether it is likely or not has no bearing on whether they want that to happen. I don't want it to happen. I still think it is not entirely unlikely. But that's not on the observers.

It's going to be a very long three years. Or a very short one. That choice is not up to the rest of the world but up to the USA.

America has threatened to invade allies.

From the perspective of these allies it is better that American descends into a small civil war and sorts this shit out now rather than it keep simmering and escalting into a global conflict where more people including more Americans die.

Imperial boomerang after decades of adventurism in the middle east.

It's also stupid. A US civil war which went far enough to fragment the country would in actuality be a global WWIII and lead to billions of deaths.

And a new global leader, likely in the form of China. Which I'm sure everyone would see as an improvement. Right?

You have to ask yourself, compared to current US leadership, is China actually all that bad?

US is being driven by the personal whims of a deteriorating tyrant, Congress is allowing it and the courts are only doing a tiny amount of checking his power.

You can't just say "despite everything happening we're still the good guys and China and Russia are the bad guys!"

Osama bin Ladin won. The goals he had when he attacked America have been entirely achieved. Americans got stupid and became susceptible to the society changing effects of terrorism. He got us to destroy ourselves.

Call me a traditionalist but I do think having free/fair elections is a massive distinguishing factor.

Having free elections doesn't make you the good guys if you elect a tryant to be a tyrant. Republicans are getting what they voted for and they STILL want what's happening. I've heard them say it.

This leftist idea that everything will just be ok and we don't need to do anything because it'll all be fixed in the next election needs to stop.

Right now the only people actually protecting the republic are the people in the streets because NOBODY else is accomplishing anything.

> Republicans are getting what they voted for and they STILL want what’s happening.

Trump was elected as a specific reaction to the previous administration’s immigration policies. You’re right that voters supported that, but they didn't sign up for the rest. If you look at the polling, the tariffs and the Greenland push are explicitly unpopular.

> having free elections doesn’t make you the good guys if you elect a tyrant.

it does. The point of democracy is that voters make mistakes. Even European countries have elected tyrants in the past. The difference is that a free system allows you to survive a bad leader and vote them out; an authoritarian one doesn't.

This excessive faith in democracy is problematic. The founders of the United States, the Romans, and the Athenian philosophers who came up with democracy all openly talked about one of the risks of democracy in mob rule. Sometimes the most popular idea is in fact not nice. Good things don't just automatically come from adding a little democracy to the mix.

Sometimes (it's not so rare) the majority of people WANT horrible things to be perpetuated by their government. It isn't just "mistakes" or being tricked or some sort of scam, governments act with the consent of the people and a ruling majority voting for atrocities is not uncommon.

I'm not saying democracy is bad, but I am saying it's delusional to think that just having democracy cures all ills.

---

I have heard first hand people I know, seen people in videos online, and seen plenty of comments online to the tune of "ICE is doing EXACTLY what we want, keep going". A lot of people want exactly what has happened and while I think either the majority is eroding or already lost in support for these things, it is by no means a landslide in public opinion against the rising fascist politics in America. Sitting by and expecting to win the next election and just gritting your teeth until then is not the right response.

A huge portion of why this has happened is democratic "knowledge" that they deserve to win so they will, and making really bad political decisions based on this attitude.

Is that why Texas is gerrymandering their maps again? Is it to have "fair" elections?

Why doesn't China gerrymander their maps?

Because they have the most fair elections. Duh.

Changing topics I see

Or why GOP legislatures in states like Wisconsin or North Carolina remove powers from Governor, AG and other elected positions only when Democrats win but not when Republicans do?

> US is being driven by the personal whims of a deteriorating tyrant

Why does Hacker News make Trump sound so much more interesting than he really is?

He's sent his personal police force to my city to rip people out of their cars and arrest them for being brown, not to mention murdering a lady who seconds before was smiling and waving officers to go around. In no way is this an exaggeration.

He's trying to use economic warfare to annex Greenland.

The most powerful man in the world is a delusional dementia patient and egomaniac being allowed to do literally anything he wants.

Because real evil is boring.

> Osama bin Ladin won. The goals he had when he attacked America have been entirely achieved. Americans got stupid and became susceptible to the society changing effects of terrorism. He got us to destroy ourselves.

I think one of the effects of American narcissism and stupidity is not understanding that Osama bin Laden's primary goal was to replace the Saudi royal family with a Caliphate of his design, and no, he never actually accomplished that. He wasn't about us.

China is buying 50% of Russian gas and supplying them with drone parts and gunpowder which is directly used to kill Europeans and destabilize Europe.

They are also exporting their surveillance state technology to dictatorships in Pakistan, Iran, and Venezuela. Look at Iran, 16000 protestors are dead in two weeks. That is the Chinese model of stability.

Bad leaders exist everywhere, Europe included. But in the US, they leave. Trump is gone in two years. Good luck aligning your economies and value systems with China. I’m firmly on the side of liberal democracy.

The US just kidnapped the leader of Venezuela, Iran got into this theocratic regime situation in the first place because of US interference, and our closest NATO allies are legitimately preparing for war with the US and decrying the new world order. Not to mention the previous decades of destabilizing, arming, overthrowing, etc. many many countries to serve our own self interest.

You're a European leader looking at this situation frankly trying to decide whose atrocities and foreign policy is worse, it's not exactly obvious and choosing China because at least China isn't trying to annex your neighbors and is behaving rationally even if it's not nice things it's predictable.

There's a big difference between "We're the good guys, we stopped the bad things happening in our country before they started" and "I know we're doing awful things but I bet it'll stop soon with our next election".

Why? The US is only 5% of the world population. If others successfully disentangle themselves before the civil war begins they can take steps to isolate themselves. Yes it won't be as peaceful of a world but I don't see how it is certain to end up in a WWIII scenario.

Do you think the newly minted American Balkans are going to be peaceful and well governed? And won't, say, try to annex parts of canada, mexico, greenland, central american or island nations, etc? Do you think they will be lead by well reasoned and insightful peoples that won't escalate to a nuclear civil war and that no foreign power will try to intervene, take sides, or try to grab some real estate as well?

You think the most well funded and capable military in the world would sit idle and please itself with keeping conflict contained?

Who are you referring to? Citizens doing this? 70% of the country is fat (large portion of that is also dangerously obese)

If your scenario plays out they will also be broke so that military may not be able to be funded. I wouldnt say its impossible but a civil war would break the country such that a lot of the aspects that make you fearful also cease to exist.

Nobody wants to see dead Americans. Put away your grievance politics.

We're responding to someone describing a civil war as a best case scenario. I have no grievance politics.

The problem is that alternative seems to be America starting WWIII or America violently occupying Europe. That means even more death.

you're really going to have egg on your face when none of these three paths happen

We don't live in the meth lab downstairs, we're in the apartment above it. It's been wild in the past couple of decades, but lately you guys have started taking pot shots at the ceiling, so yeah, we're watching.

I don't think an American civil war in the next 5 years is at all likely. The rest of your comment I understand - not much we can say beyond we're sorry and his support is a small (but influential) minority.

> I don't think an American civil war in the next 5 years is at all likely.

The government of Minnesota has readied the national guard, the Pentagon put 1500 soldiers on standby to be deployed to Minnesota, Trump is threatening to invoke the insurrection act, and there's no sign of this conflict cooling off.

5 years is a long time too, I don't see how you believe it's not at all likely.

Edit: to be clear, I'm not sure it will lead to the fragmentation that the other commenters was claiming. But an conflict between federal and state law enforcement/ military seems likely.

> I don't think an American civil war in the next 5 years is at all likely.

Minnesota might like a word with you

I think you're missing the criticism, which is not just that an armed civil war is extremely unlikely even given everything happening in the US, if it did happen, it would not splinter the US regionally.

The divide here is urban vs rural. There's no way to turn that into a set of successor regions.

If armed conflict does happen, it'll be much more amorphous, terrifying, and random, concentrated in the cities, and resemble things like the Tulsa massacre at a larger scale.

I get what you're saying and mostly somewhat agree with your point, but it's kind of funny thinking back and feeling the complete opposite. People like to argue which states would be better off in a civil war, meanwhile I grew up in an area where people liked to claim the south is going to rise yet again. And we do have a problem with militias.

How would a USA civil be the best scenario globally? Who knows what wars that would trigger globally

> 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.

The US isn't going to passively give up its hold on the world order. You don't think this would trigger a world war?

And if / when the US does topple (whether in 10 years or in 1000 years), at the moment it looks like the only viable next leaders in the world order are autocratic dictatorships.

How is this a best scenario from a global perspective?

> The US isn't going to passively give up its hold on the world order. You don't think this would trigger a world war?

They are literally right in the middle of imploding their soft power; so maybe you are right about passively giving it up when they're actively doing so instead?

would you call annexing greenland or invading venezuela passive?

> The US isn't going to passively give up its hold on the world order.

No, instead they're actively throwing it on a bonfire.

No, I don't know why either.

The opposition to American hegemony shifted from Europe (ie the USSR) to Asia (ie China). To that end, NATO lacks the capacity to meaningfully impact a conflict in the Pacific. The EU simply does not have the means to project power in that way nor do they have the ability to meaningfully implement economic policies that would effectively reduce Chinese growth.

Trump is an asshole, but the strategy hasn’t really changed in the last decade or so. Obama tried to isolate China with European help, Trump 1.0 tried to convince Europe to step up, Biden showed them we were willing to move on, and now Trump 2.0 is following through.

People fail to realize how anti-European this past decade has been, and not just under Trump. Europe had significant issue with the Inflation Reduction Act. Not to mention the war in Ukraine, which while illegal and entirely caused by Russia, was capitalized upon by American diplomats to the absolute benefite of the US at the expense of Europe.

The overarching plan has been evident for a while, Trump is just blatant about it. He lacks the decorum to make someone happy about being gifted a lemon. Past administrations have had much more tact in that regard.

America does not want direct conflict with China. China doesn’t want direct conflict with America either. It would be catastrophic for both honestly. Neither side would emerge cleanly victorious. Both would be limping away scarred by the experience. To that end America is just trying to let the underlying structural issues play out. China and Europe both have some structural issues that need addressed. America is gonna build up it’s own hemisphere and simply wait the rest of the world out.

Is it the best plan? Honestly it might be. The more I see of it, the more comfortable I am growing with it. I was more worried about it in the Biden days simply because I was still under the mindset of Europe being an important ally. America was undermining the European economy on multiple fronts and it seemed like we were alienating some of our closest allies. Ironically what I think a lot of people are feeling now.

The truth is though that Europe is dead weight. Their economy is anemic, their still too fragmented militarily and they have been actively undermining America’s effects to derisk supply chains from China. Trump’s broad tariffs would have been handled better under someone else, but the end result would have been the same out of simple necessity. Since COVID America has grown more dependent on China due to second order effects. Everytime we close a door someone else opens a window to let them back in. And it’s not just Europe, but Canada, South Korea, others too. Honestly Mexico has probably been our best ally in that regard.

If you follow the geopolitical sphere most of what’s happening is not new. Trump hasn’t really changed the plan - he’s just subtle like a brick to the face. He is loud and boastful about it where before it was clever and subtextual. That is really the only change. Geopoliticallt he tries to dominate while Biden and Obama would convince people something stupid was what they really wanted.

I don’t know if that helps the anxiety at all. I’ve felt it, I’ve been there. I’ve yet to see a better plan though. Honestly, the next decade is gonna be bumpy, but if you look at the long-term trajectory, America is gonna be well ahead of the rest of the world by the 2040s. We are easily in the best strategic position I would say. Once you really wrap your mind around the various aspects of it, it’s not a bad plan. It’s not Trump’s plan, it’s not Biden’s plan, this plan has roots going back over a decade. I’m sure at some point it was just a COA under discussion with multiple decision points and alternatives. Could it have worked itself out differently? Probably. But given where we are it’s probably the best plan for now.

> The truth is though that Europe is dead weight. Their economy is anemic, their still too fragmented militarily

What an incredibly ignorant statement. Europe's economy in real terms is doing fine, their productivity is growing. The US's economy only looks good on paper, but outside of the AI bubble, companies aren't growing wages are stagnant with inflation.

Europe is also on the verge of federalization. But you have to understand getting over two dozen countries with vastly different cultures, histories and languages to cooperate is a gargantuan task. One the EU has been incredibly successful at.

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 efforts are facing massive head wins from energy costs and China is absolutely wrecking their neo-colonial African holdings.

I hope the EU moves to a more Federalized model of governance - it would certainly benefit them. And I agree that it won't be easy. I am not sure California and Texas would agree to the model the United States has today. I can't even imagine what it would be like for Germany and France. But they have some serious issues to address. These are some foundational changes that are unlikely to happen in the next year or two.

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 components in USA and in Europe. Now the prices in USA are 30% to 40% higher, in sharp contrast with how the price ratio was in the previous years, when prices were lower in USA.

The real economic strength of Europe vs. USA is much greater than the values of GDP expressed in USD, and including some meaningless indicators, would seem to imply.

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.

Adjust GDP per hours worked, you will find Europe has eclipsed the US in terms of productivity.

The US has the benefit of the government borrowing insane amounts of money to juice it's economy, by being the world hegemony. That advantage has evaporated and you see the current capital going to unproductive industries.

> Adjust GDP per hours worked

And why would we do that?

I guess if you torture the data long enough it will confess to anything.

because productivity is the important metric, GDP per hours worked measures this, and better demonstrates the quality of life given to citizens.

European productivity is beating American productivity. American GDP is heavily warped by money borrowing and previously foreign investment.

> Europe is also on the verge of federalization.

Hopefully. It needs to do something about veto powers and the fact that Orban exists.

> To that end, NATO lacks the capacity to meaningfully impact a conflict in the Pacific. The EU simply does not have the means to project power in that way

This has been repeated elsewhere in this story. What's your thinking here? I assume you mean the non-US members of NATO, but you seem to have forgotten two G7 members if you're equating NATO - US with the EU.

The remaining members include two nuclear-armed states, five or so aircraft carriers, submarines, several large air forces, navies, etc. What would make them unable to project force into the Pacific?

Yes, Britain and France have aircraft carriers but they are old, small and likely to be sunk by modern hyper-sonics. Europe's inability to project power is well documented though. Most of the 2025 literature is more related to overland mobility in Europe, since that is the piece Europe is currently working to fix, but the European militaries are not designed for global engagement. Most American documents on the topic don't even really mention NATO's involvement against China. Here's some stuff to consider though. Here is a decent primer:

https://warontherocks.com/2024/04/two-theater-tragedy-a-relu...

> Yes, Britain and France have aircraft carriers but they are old, small and likely to be sunk by modern hyper-sonics

You clearly don't have any idea what you're talking about.

The UK's two aircraft carriers were commissioned in 2017 and 2019 and carry 60 and 48 aircraft respectively.

I agree there are strong undercurrents but how can we give Trump 2 any credit when we're annihilating brand America. Hearing Trump speak to Macron about the nobel prize and now he's tweeting out "I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace." We aren't a reliable partner and with the structural issues and real politik anything we try to do now in the pacific will cost substantially more. Alls we needed to do was deepen the partnerships we had and look like a mean bulldog against China.

> To that end, NATO lacks the capacity to meaningfully impact a conflict in the Pacific.

NATO is literally the North Atlantic Treaty Org. Basic map-reading tells you that the Pacific is not the North Atlantic. Sure, securing the Pacific might take a "Pacific Treaty" of regional powers, but we see no signs of that kind of thinking at present from the USA. Bridges are being burned not built.

> Trump is an asshole, but the strategy hasn’t really changed ... Trump hasn’t really changed the plan -- he’s just subtle like a brick to the face

Is this the new talking point? That it's business as usual with an uglier face? This is rubbish though on multiple dimensions, this is now a kakistocratic and kleptocratic US administration, that is going out of its way to alienate allies .

> America is gonna be well ahead of the rest of the world by the 2040s.

I think you'll find that kleptocrats don't tend to have that "get ahead" effect.

> The US economy is in a very precarious state, tensions along political ideology lines are high, and it would not take much more than a worsening of economic conditions plus a catalyst event to kick off armed unrest within the country.

Do you remember the situation that precipitated the Nazi takeover of Germany? Wasn't it hyperinflation and economic collapse? And you think it would be a good idea to push the US further in that direction?

You'll get worse, not better.

> 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.

Are you serious? That's an utterly insane idea. The best scenario from a global perspective is the US regains its stability. Europe is in no position to defend itself militarily, it relies on US support via NATO. I believe similar is true of Japan and other countries. A US civil war would only help Russia and China (Russia would gobble up Ukraine and who knows what else, China would take Taiwan and dominate/subjugate the rest of Asia, like Japan, in some fashion that non-Chinese nations wouldn't be happy with).

Also US polarization isn't regional (e.g. a big part is urban/rural). There's no "fragmentation into independent regions" that would really solve the problem.

The rest of the world is not going to be bullied into submission by one guy. If you can't take care of your own problem then eventually the world will turn away from you. This has the obvious potential of spiraling out of control but Trump is first and foremost the responsibility of the US population. The rest of the world will pick up the pieces. But he needs to be kept inside the lines or he'll run into people who are not just going to say 'yes' to his every whim.

But "not getting bullied" is and entirely different thing than thinking a US civil war would be a good thing for the world or "reduce the global threat" (which is just bonkers).

Like, we're all amateurs on a web forum, but it's best to avoid monomaniacal, first-order thinking.

Nobody hopes for that other than some guys that think that crashing the US lets them pick up the pieces like it happened with the USSR but on a much larger scale.

If you honestly believe that the EU wants the US to descend into civil war then you you have your parties grossly mixed up.

> If you honestly believe that the EU wants the US to descend into civil war then you you have your parties grossly mixed up.

I don't think it does, but I'm not responding to them. I'm responding to someone who made a bonkers comment up-thread.

I think they're seeing that against the alternative: a global war. Which is definitely one of the other options on the table right now.

> I think they're seeing that against the alternative: a global war. Which is definitely one of the other options on the table right now.

Except that's not an either-or alternative. Even if the US had a civil war and somehow disappeared, other belligerent actors would be free to start conflicts that had been held back by US pressure. You still have your "global" war. Like if the US disintegrates right now, Europe can kiss all of Ukraine goodbye, and probably the Baltics, too.

And even if somehow the US was the only problem (it's not), there's a decent chance that the end result of a civil war is a non-fragmented and even more belligerent US.

Russia was already slated to gobble up Ukraine.

Previously, it was content to treat UKR as a puppet, but after a color revolution and their man in Kiev was deposed, their hand was forced.

We're only now seeing it as an overt tug of war between the Great Powers

History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, something like that? I think we are indeed watching the fascist takeover, and economic collapse is under way -- it's just when you watch a giant fall, they seem to fall oh ever so slowly, the scale distorts the speed until it's right there, then it's "suddenly" a cliff drop.

I agree with you, one dimension of the cultural split is urban / rural. The other dimension is actual culture as based on history -- deep south, southwest, cascadia, breadbasket, eastern seaboard -- these areas have different enough cultural heritage you could see them as separate regions if you squint hard enough. But the key deciding factor are the centers of military power -- where the major air, navy, and nuclear bases are. Overlay that over the cultural map, and you get the Independent Regions. The urban centers would define the voronoi centers of the subregions, with rural areas becoming more of no-mans-land, roving-bands boundary scenarios.

I mean yes it all sounds fantastical, but most unprecedented things do until they come to pass. There's so many patterns and echoes that gently indicate that this unfortunately may indeed be the way.

> The most effective way to reduce the global threat the US is appearing to pose more as of late, is to hit the dollar.

Which is exactly what this administration is doing. What do you expect to happen when the POTUS and DOJ overtly pressure the sitting Chairman of the Federal Reserve to cut Fed Funds rates and print more money, thus creating more inflation in direct violation of a crystal-clear Congressional mandate? Do you think that's good for the U.S. as a destination for safe assets, or a "reserve currency"?

No, it's pure symbolism. Countries don't purchase US treasuries to be charitable to the US. This hurts Denmark just as much as it hurts the US. And in relative terms, Denmark is going to feel the pain from this way more than the US since the US economy is 70x bigger than Denmark's.

You could measure this by looking at the Pensions fund performance vs US treasuries over the next decade or so.

> The most effective way to reduce the global threat the US is appearing to pose more as of late, is to hit the dollar.

I really don't understand why people keep saying that despite the fact that Stephen Miran, Trump economic advisor, made it an explicit goal to devalue the dollar:

> The root of the economic imbalances lies in persistent dollar overvaluation that prevents the balancing of international trade

https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/rese...

They want the dollar's value to go down. You don't make someone change course by doing what they want as a punishment.

It's symbolism unless planting a stooge to lower interest rates below any economic justification in April causes a significant slide on the dollar's value. In which case its a great investment move.

> It's symbolism.

It's not. This is where the financial rubber meets the road, actions have consequences, and the rest of the world is looking at the US as increasingly unlikely to pay above inflation on its debts.

The people managing the pension funds (if they are acting in good faith) really want to generate yield, and really want to preserve capital for the Danish people. They don't want to symbolically do those things, they want to actually do them. If treasuries were still part of what they believe to be the best strategy, they would still be holding them.

There's no chance US will default on its debts, all it has to do is to print more money.

Inflation may spirale, but it's going to be a US citizens problems (as well as US bond holders) in terms of inflation and budget cuts.

It will also be a global problem and not just US citizens, as the dollars underpins a vast amount of global wealth and trade.

Of course it would have consequences, but US has had multiple huge waves of inflations and very high interest rates, we've all survived.

The US has never dealt with hyperinflation.

The US isn't going to get hyperinflation. It's going to get a Japan style heat death. More and more wealth concentrated into low yielding debt, rather than invested into growth, while purchasing power is chewed up by persistent currency debasement. Japan never did suffer real deflation (that was a lie), it suffered massive inflation: they debased the Yen to garbage levels, drastically chopping down the standard of living of the typical Japanese person, wiping out their wealth, eroding the value of their output per capita. Only in a twisted, failed Keynesian experiment could one confuse such epic scale inflation with deflation. What they thought was deflation was an economic heat death due to their productive capital being tied up in low yield debt.

“There's no chance US will default on its debts, all it has to do is to print more money.”

Trying to inflate away 40+ Trillion in debt would directly result in hyperinflation.

> they debased the Yen to garbage levels

Look at Yen to USD exchange rates and it’s clear they didn’t. “From 1991 to 2003, the Japanese economy, as measured by GDP, grew only 1.14% annually, while the average real growth rate between 2000 and 2010 was about 1%,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decades Meanwhile the USD exchange rate in Jan 1988 was 127 vs 140 in 1998 vs 107 in 2008. It went up and down all through the 20 years of poor economic growth, but something else was clearly the issue.

It did not go into a hyperinflation after the WW2, when the US debt load as a share of GDP was even higher than today; and deflated in the same way US is likely to do it now (bond rates forced way below inflation with yield control).

I am not saying that the process will be pleasant for the US or its citizens. But it is not without precedent and is extremely unlikely to cause hyperinflation. My 2c.

The post WWII economic boom outgrew the debt thus dramatically decreased the debt to GDP ratio.

The US is unlikely to find itself the only industrialized nation without massively damaged infrastructure again anytime soon.

Actually I think this is their plan... :(

Have you been to Japan? Salaries are low, but stuff is crazy cheap (even after the past year of inflation). People are still feeling whiplash from the fact that prices can change at all. Many menus and items have prices that have barely changed since the early 1990s, and most of those changes were to add sales taxes to the menu.

The exchange rate of the yen has dropped recently by a lot, but the inflation experience there has been the exact opposite of America's.

Good thing our productive capital is safely all tied up into quickly depreciated AI infra then.

I don't think it is that easy though. If you are simply trying to pay off existing debt sure, but we constantly need new debt as well so there is a limit to how much money we can print.

You obviously cut the budget and raise taxes.

If that was actually being considered you don’t need to default in the first place.

"Not that easy" & EPolanski replies with 2 things the US Congress almost never does

You’re assuming the people in charge are sane, rationale, and value past decisions that have worked out. It’s quite clear with the now likely permanent damage to NATO this isn’t the case.

You're assuming NATO is somehow critical for the US. It is not.

NATO is critical for the European powers (those not named Russia). The US doesn't require it. The US doesn't need to defend Europe any longer. And it's clear the Europeans don't want the US there, so it works out great. Europe can boost its defense spending by ~$300 billion to make up the difference, or not, whatever they choose to do is up to them.

The US had the world's largest economy six decades before NATO existed. China is growing into a superpower entirely without a NATO-like participation. NATO is primarily beneficial to European stability. The US doesn't need NATO to defend itself at all.

This is not a one sided thing. The US has been allowed to do a lot of things under the NATO umbrella that it benefited from (such as: selling a vast quantity of arms). Soft power is a thing and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization came into being to deal with exactly the kind of situation that we are viewing today. To see the US bow out, and in fact threatening allies is duplicitous at best.

The Euros also underfunded their defense obligations and received huge amounts of US investment in facilities, enabling them to upfund social programs, socialized healthcare and most egregiously 8 - 12 week vacations which are completely unheard of in the US.

You are spending too much time in an echo chamber if you think that those things that are unheard of in the US could not have been done in the US. They could have been, but it would have required a different kind of path than you chose.

The EU has chosen to try to cooperate rather than to be at war all the time and it looks like that may have been a wrong bet but that is mostly because first one (Russia) and now another (USA) party have reneged on the deals that were in place.

They could have been done is my contention.

But not while carrying Euros’ defense obligations

Sorry, but that's just dumb. You could have done all that and more. You're being used to defend massive wealth inequality and wealth concentration over the backs of the poorest 95% or so of the country. The two have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. The USA is not 'unable to have a more decent balance of life because they are carrying Europe's defense obligation'.

> The Euros also underfunded their defense obligations and received huge amounts of US investment in facilities, enabling them to upfund social programs, socialized healthcare and most egregiously 8 - 12 week vacations which are completely unheard of in the US.

It's hard to detect sarcasm through the screen but in case you're being serious and just repeat what Trump says, he does this because Americans are not stupid and are asking, why Europeans can enjoy free healthcare, education and 4-week holidays and we cant? The answer "because we sponsored them" makes no sense but finds fertile ground in the hearts of some people.

Who has 8 week vacations, let alone 12? No European country I’m aware of, but I didn’t check all…

Austria has 30 days leave after 25 years service (other wise 25 days) - so that is 6 weeks, plus 13 public holidays. So some people get around 8 weeks there.

Here in the UK, I get 29 days leave, I buy 5 more, plus get 8 bank holidays - so 42 days leave - or 8 weeks. Plus volunteering days and training days... but that isn't that common.

Australia has 6 weeks of leave at similar service levels, plus 11 public holidays. Turns out many countries have figured out how to not work themselves to death.

> Who has 8 week vacations, let alone 12? No European country I’m aware of, but I didn’t check all…

All teachers and most politicians. Teachers do enjoy the same vacation as students: schools aren't open during vacation. Two months of vacation + 6 additional weeks of vacation during the year + a few special one-day holidays.

As for politicians: my stepfather was working at a national parliament but only when there would be official questions and only when these would be in his native tongue (country had two official languages). And when the country would be without a government, he'd have as much as 500 days (500 days: you read correctly, and it didn't happen once but twice) of vacations. It's only if there was a super urgent matter where the parliament would be opened that he'd have to work: so he'd quickly hop on a plane and go back to his native country.

So "who": some public servants. Not all but some public servants definitely do enjoy 8 to 12 weeks of vacation and even much more than that.

At the expense of working, taxpaying, citizens.

EDIT: for the 500 days... He would not know beforehand it'd be 500 days. He'd just know there was no government anymore. So he was fully paid but basically had to do jack shit until there'd be a government again. Which nobody could tell when it'd happen. But you read correctly: half a thousand days+. You all read that correctly. His vacation on the sunny french riviera paid by the taxes of the people.

You're not familiar with the german holiday & vacation system are you?

I lived in Europe and can explain it for you.

In Germany, particularly in Bavaria with its 13 gesetzliche Feiertage (holidays including regional ones like Heilige Drei Könige, Fronleichnam, and Allerheiligen), Urlaubstage can be maximized through smart planning. The rule is that weekends (Samstag and Sonntag) and Feiertage do not count against your Urlaubskonto; they don't deduct from your vacation days. With over 30 Urlaubstage (the legal minimum is 24 Werktage, but many collective agreements grant 30 or more), you achieve over 60 free days (calendar days of absence) by using Brückentage (Bridging days) and longer blocks.

If you have more than 30 Urlaubstage (e.g., 32), it rises to ~70 free days. It is possible—plan early, as Brückentage are popular!

We would fund nationwide health care and more robust social programs if it weren't for all the money we are spending on defense is simply not something the US right-wing and centrists ever put out there. When they fought those things it was with the ideological argument that they were intrinsically wrong. OMG Socialism!

They’re unheard of in Europe too, you’ve read too many internet comments and lost touch with reality.

Please refer to my comment above on how to use bridging days (Brückentage) to get to over 60 days of absense.

In the case of 32 days of vacation with bridging & holidays it is very possible to get over 70 days of calendar absence

And in the overwhelming majority of Europe they are unheard of.

If this were true, and if you want to give credit to Trump for EU defense spending increases, then (1) why is Trump asking for a dramatic increase in US military funding and (2) when will the US savings on defending the EU be spent on US workers?

1. Obviously the Trump admin is requesting an increased military budget because of looming global conflict. We don't want to get caught with our pants down.

Russia obviously bears the moral blame for starting this war, but Putin clearly was tempted by Western weakness. Had European states kept large and effective militaries and credibly threatened to employ them in Ukraine's defense, we probably wouldn't be where we are right now. So in some not insignificant measure, historical European underspending has contributed to the need right now for dramatically increased spending across the entire alliance.

2. I disagree with GP and agree with your cynicism there. US domestic policy failures are in no way caused by foreign intransigence of any kind. IIRC we spend more on health care per capita than (almost?) any other nation yet rank nowhere near the top in health outcomes. That's on us.

And I think it's important to correctly identify the root cause of our broken domestic policies, because I suspect fixing that issue will fix more governance failures than just healthcare.

Agreed that Putin was tempted by Western weakness, but you didn't go far enough West.

Oh, right. I forgot that European states have no agency or responsibility and are innocent victims of big bad America. Mea culpa.

I wrote "Western" rather than "European" specifically because I believe American weakness has played a role, too. But would it really make it better if Russia invaded Europe solely because of American weakness? That European states are so weak and helpless that they hardly even factor into Putin's calculus?

> socialized healthcare

So why does the US spend more per capita on healthcare than the EU?

I find it interesting how people say "The US" to refer to groups under the US government that are often completely at odds with the interests of the actual US public. There are virtually no Americans who want our government to be acting in the interests of arms manufacturers except the arms manufacturers themselves and the politicians they pay.

How many groups do you know in other countries that you refer to by name rather than the name of the country and the general idea that the government of that country must represent at least at some significant level the will of it's people?

It is supposed to be a "liberal democracy". "You" have killed millions to promote this idea and now trying to disown it.

C'mon, what a lame excuse. Well then, show us that democracy works and vote for a goverment which doesn't? If I follow your reasoning, you've just demonstrated that democracy is a failure, because the US government acts in the interests of arms manufacturers since a very long time, no matter if Dems or Reps are in power.

Our democracy is clearly disfunctional. I believe corporate money has played a big role to make it worse.

We own the consequences of our actions, our votes. Yes, we as a country, for whatever reasons, voted for someone who very clearly telegraphed he would be doing exactly what he's been doing. FAFO, and we're not even close to the full spectrum of what the FO part implies.

We the people are responsible for the government we get.

Don't like the consequences? Make better voting choices next time.

It gets annoying how americans try and wash their hands of everything their government does. You live in a democracy. Freedom comes with responsibility. The average american voter is at least partially to blame.

If elections were held today, regardless of who the candidates were, the GOP candidates would receive roughly half the votes. Just like they always do. It's not like there's a regime in place totally at odds with the broader will of the people. It's only at odds with about half of the people.

Why wouldn't Americans want government to act in the interest of their companies (e.g. arms manufacturers)? That's more into GDP, more jobs etc. Unless it takes a business away from other companies, of course. But any American should be glad that, say, Raytheon won a big contract over some company in another country.

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 have no real military power--certainly none that can be projected in the Pacific theater--and wouldn't have the will to deploy it even if they did. Europeans now expect America to fight Russia for them, not with them. So now NATO is basically all risk and cost for the US with no benefit against their main adversary.

I think it's a shortsighted view of American national security imperatives: American security relies as it ever did on security in both Western Europe and Eastern Asia. Abandoning one theater to focus on the other just leaves a giant blind spot.

However, this has led Europe to take its own security more seriously and stop relying on America to fight the Russians for them, something multiple POTUSes have tried more diplomatically to achieve--and failed--for decades.

> Europeans now expect America to fight Russia for them, not with them.

As an European: nobody has this expectation, unless you're using some strange subreddit comment as a source of information.

Compare the strength of the militaries of Europe with the United States and you'll see how that claim is believable.

That's changing, but for many years European nations did not spend very much on their militaries. A large part of why is the protection of NATO and US bases in various countries.

No, that's the logic of a 15 years old playing call of duty.

Europe has spent less on military because after the cold war and still today, it never had any realistic threat. Russia can't even take few miles off Ukraine.

The only realistic threat is the US, which is an ally, in theory. Now a threat.

That, and as the main theater for two world wars Europe is - and likely will remain - sick of war. We'd rather avoid it, unless it comes knocking on our door, and then, reluctantly, we'll do what needs to be done.

> Russia can't even take few miles off Ukraine

And yet Europe is unable to support Ukraine enough to change the course of war.

Which is the direct cause of the current situation. If Europe was so strong and ready, war in Ukraine would be over, Russia was defeated, and US wouldn't even think of doing what it is doing.

Everything else is copium.

The course of war has already changed.

I forgot how many times it was announced before.

>> Europe is unable to support Ukraine enough to change the course of war.

It's not unable. There is little political will in Europe and USA to support Ukraine with arms to the victory. They support Ukraine just enough to not loose. It's in their interest to grind russian meat and tanks in Ukraine as long as possible.

The US lacks political will to support Ukraine (mostly) because it's a conflict ten thousand miles away. Europe should have a much more immediate interest in Ukraine not losing.

Sadly, Europe isn't one entity and the interest wanes the further the countries are. Anyone neighboring Russia is, predictably, helping a lot while also arming themselves. Central Europe somewhat less, and the Mediterranean countries seem to concern themselves mostly with other topics. Seems like the threat should become more substantial before the whole continent awakens.

> Europe isn't one entity and the interest wanes the further the countries are.

I keep trying to make people here aware of that, but euro-enthusiasm is very good at hiding ugly and complex reality of European politics. And it is not even limited to Ukraine, but it shows itself with Greenland as well. If you really take a closer look, you'll see that different countries indeed made different reactions, even if they sent symbolic amounts of troops to Greenland.

And, above else, people tend to mistake words for action, and believe that a post made by some European leader on Twitter is somehow enough to bring things into reality.

> Seems like the threat should become more substantial before the whole continent awakens.

But Russia is not and won't be strong enough to pose a significant threat to German or French core territory, not to speak about Spain or Ireland. Moreover, as much as we in Europe like to equate Putin with some evil madman, for it makes the world simpler for us, Russian elite is rational, and invasion of Germany is nothing but stupid from their perspective. Of course there are broader interests that may motivate countries to act against Russia (for example French influence in Africa or Asia) but, at the same time, these interests may motivate them to throw Eastern Europe under the bus.

Therefore if anybody believes in some united European action, or a single European army that would actually be worth anything and won't be yet another initiative created mainly to come up with a nice catch-phrase (Steadfast Europe!), lives inside a fantasy.

The US needs greenland because Russia is that much of a threat but we don't need NATO even though it was created because of Russia(USSR) and we are hesitant to supply Ukraine with weapons even though they are actually fighting Russia because it's too expensive but we also are going to buy a country

> It's not unable. There is little political will in Europe

But that's the point - will is everything. No one denies that Europe has enough money. Thing is, it doesn't have much else.

> The only realistic threat is the US, which is an ally, in theory. Now a threat.

The realistic threat is Russia, which is currently winning a war in Ukraine through sheer attrition and will succeed unless Europe steps up big time.

I hate Trump and would much rather see the world keep on going the way it has been, but Europe's militaries grew around an American core after WWII. A few nations have serious armies (France, for one) but most of Europe is close enough to a US airbase for a small military to work fine.

This misses the point, which is that Europe and the US need each other. Without the US, Europe stands no chance against Chinese and Russian influence. Without Europe, the US cannot stand against China and Russia.

> Compare the strength of the militaries of Europe with the United States and you'll see how that claim is believable.

That's the wrong comparison - the comparison in this context is the size of the European military versus Russia.

Is it just me that finds it odd that the same people say that both Russian is an imminent threat to Europe - where its tanks could roll over the continent - and at the same time say just one more push to win in Ukraine?

If Russia attacked a united Europe it would lose - the slow defeat in Ukraine is purely a matter of will, not capability. ie it matters more to Russia than Europe.

Note most Europeans don't see the war in Ukraine as an attack on Europe by the Russians - despite what the hawks would like to paint - that's why the hawks can't bounce Europeans to put significant boots on the ground in Ukraine.

How is US military spending say that Europe was letting the US fight Russia?

The US spending could be the result of so many other factors.

This is essentially what happened in Libya when Cameron and Sarkozy badgered Obama into participating

I set your house on fire, so maybe now you will take fire insurance more seriously?

This, but with the US owning the penthouse suite above the apartments it set on fire...

France have tactical nukes. If Russia ever tried to really invade, a warning shot will be fired, and then no invasion.

> stop relying on America to fight the Russians for them,

That's a very uncharitable take. Europe relies on NATO to fight the Russians. Of course it does. There is no alternative, and the US would never allow other credible alliances to form. Because why would they? It's certainly not in their interest.

It's good that Europe spends more in security, and it's good that Europe seems to be serious about Ukraine. However western Europe is something else. If push really would come to shove, there is zero chance Russia could take and hold continental Europe.

The population is larger, the economy is larger by a ridicolous amount, and there are French and British nukes positioned all over. What Europe is mainly lacking military projection in the Pacific and the Middle East, and that's not likely to change.

Indeed. And every initiative in the past to create a 'European army' was strenuously opposed by previous US administrations, who wanted their alliances fragmented. US policymakers have said that any European military integration must avoid the '3 D's: Decoupling (from NATO), Duplication (of NATO command/legistic structures), and Discrimination (against US and Israeli arms vendors).

This has been policy from at least the Clinton administration, and it has worked great to ensure that the US remains the biggest fish in the NATO pond, even if it is not bigger than all the others put together. Now that the current administration is tearing NATO in real time and the President is saying that his 'personal morality' trumps international law and treaties (never mind that ratified treaties stand on the same level as the Constitution, per the Constitution itself), I would imagine that the other members are working around the clock to implement their contingency plans and ramp up domestic military production and other avenues of procurement.

Until recently, most NATO members were not meeting their commitment to spending 2% minimum GDP on defense. They were demonstrably externalizing their defense costs onto the US.

Well yes, since the commitment was to spend 2% by 2025.

The only country that ever actually asked for help as NATO member was USA. And they helped. And now, the biggest threat is USA, who is trying to cast itself as a victim.

This is not the case of Europe externalizing the cost. It is the case of USA using other countries for own benefit, then starting aggression against them while trying to cast itself as victim.

> Today, US policymakers see China as the main adversary.

That is not evident at all in how any US policymaker acts these days. China is stronger than ever, precisely due to US actions. Every day, the US gives up power and throws it away, and China picks it up off the ground for free.

The supposed "China Hawks" are all chicken hawks without anything to back them up.

There is not one single person here. A number see China as the biggest problem and act that way. A number don't, and act that way. The combined looks like a 'chicken hawk' policy though

There is a US policy though, and none of the supposed China Hawks have even voiced a "kee-ahh" in response to US policy empowering and elevating Chinese power.

Way back in September last year, which feels like forever ago, there was this good summary from Politico:

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/05/pentagon-national-d...

> Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, is leading the strategy. He played a key role in writing the 2018 version during Trump’s first term and has been a staunch supporter of a more isolationist American policy. Despite his long track record as a China hawk, Colby aligns with Vice President JD Vance on the desire to disentangle the U.S. from foreign commitments.

A supposed "China Hawk" is the one writing the policy that hands power to China! Calling them "frauds" is fully appropriate, and even though the author admits he dashed this off in a single day, I find it quite convincing:

https://secretaryrofdefenserock.substack.com/p/the-final-evo...

The ODNI Threat Assesment is the only official stance and is apolitical. China has been top of the list for nation-state threats for more than a decade.

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/...

The intelligence community are not US policy makers, and that threat assessment is not policy.

The US intelligence community is correct in its assessment, but US policy is not acting in any way consistent with both the US being the dominant world power and taking that ODNI assessment seriously.

Current US policy makers are instead trying to hide in their shell like a turtle, and greatly restrict US power so that it must not confront or deal with the threat from China.

I'm coming back to this a few days later because the official new Pentagon policy deprioritizes China:

> The National Defense Strategy — a dramatic shift from even the first Trump administration — no longer focuses primarily on countering China. Instead, it blames past administrations for ignoring American interests and jeopardizing the U.S. military’s access to the Panama Canal and Greenland.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/23/pentagon-national-d...

Edit: big news day for China Hawks proving to be frauds, this is from the WSJ

Trump Administration Pushes Out Key Officials Focused on China Tech Threat Departing staffers worked for a Commerce Department office charged with protecting the U.S. from Chinese technological advances

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-adminis...

We've moved from defensive posture to active "grey zone" warfare...

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/economic-defense-unit-how-the-u-s...

>Europeans now expect America to fight Russia for them, not with them

I note in the current Europe/Ukraine vs Russia fighting there are no US troops, although they did send weapons for which we are grateful

>China as the main adversary

neither China nor Russia are about to bomb the US but in terms of threats to US interests and hybrid warfare we have the full scale war in Ukraine vs only some threats over Taiwan and on the hybrid front I hear rumors the the Russians cultivated a US property developer code name Krasnov and he went on to cause some havoc back in the US.

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...

Looking at it in terms of the direct near-term military benefit of NATO in a conflict with China is focusing on the wrong thing. The real question isn't how strongly NATO membership would directly benefit the US military in a conflict with China; it's how strongly the act of blowing up the NATO relationship would negatively impact the US ability to deal with China in a future conflict. And those are two extremely different questions.

Are the French going to be parking the Charles de Gaulle alongside American aircraft carriers in the Taiwan Strait if push comes to shove in the Pacific? I wouldn't entirely discount it. But maybe more importantly, even if they're not, does making an enemy of the EU negatively impact the ability of the US to park American aircraft carriers there? Certainly damage to the Atlantic trade relationship is unlikely to do the US any favors economically, which is important if the US wants to keep funding the Navy. And a potential loss of European controlled military bases has the potential to negative effect the US military's logistics, which is where the real superpower status comes from. Maybe most significantly, how would such a shift in alliances impact the willingness of Pacific allies to support the US, which obviously does have a direct impact on any conflict with China.

Don't be ridiculous. The US alone cannot stand up to China. We can't even build ships anymore. Parity is only possible with an alliance comprising the full economic and manufacturing might of the "free" developed world, which includes Europe and the rest of Asia. Losing Europe as a close military and trading ally is suicidal all by itself, but it has knock-on effects: once you've abandoned Europe, do you think the rest of your allies are going to believe you're there for them? Why should South Korea risk its security building ships for a US military alliance, once we've signaled that the US values its military alliances at zero?

NATO members aren't particularly large customers for American weapons. Poland is the largest, but is dwarfed by Japan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Ukraine is receiving a bunch of weapons, but that math isn't so straight forward (they're getting a ton of old stock) and they don't have much choice anyway.

Europeans have spent 80B $ in 2024 and 68 in 2025 on US weapons.

That's not peanuts.

Total US goods exports were $2,083 in 2025. This number is 4% of all of our exported goods for the year, so actually a pretty big number when it comes to national economics. People keep talking like the US can throw away 4% here, 2% there, likes it's nothing. The same people said last week 'Trump is meme'ing about Greenland'. Now they are saying 'the hit to our economy won't be too bad' which is as truthful of a statement as 'meme'ing about Greenland' was and based on the same 'defend Trump' and not reality.

Apart from Patriot, Atacms and a few other modern systems, Ukraine is basically saving the US the cost of destroying old arms

> Soft power is a thing

This is the usual claptrap Euros and Eurosimps come up with when Americans gripe about subsidizing Europe's defense.

"Soft power" isn't putting money back in Americans' pockets, and the primary beneficiaries of NATO clearly didn't like us very much even before Trump's return, when Biden was still president and the aid flowed freely to Kyiv: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/11/views-of-the-u...

> Sweden: 47% had a favorable opinion of the US.; Germany: 49%; France: 46%; The Netherlands: 48%

This is the "soft power" that Americans should rue having lost under Trump? A continent of entitled ingrates, who constantly crow about their generous welfare states ("six months paid vacation!") they enjoy partially through neglect of defense, and condescendingly lecture us ("As a European...") about how everything we do is wrong, who apparently don't like us very much even when we do come to their defense?

Are the constantly crowing, entitled ingrates with their condescending lectures in the room right now?

Yeah, they're the ones trying to gaslight Americans into believing that NATO hasn't been a completely lopsided relationship since the end of the Cold War, and that it makes complete sense that Americans be treaty-bound to defend nations like Sweden (which lifted not one finger when Finland was invaded by the Soviet Union and its territory annexed, and also later when Norway was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany), a country where less than half of the population had a favorable view of us as a nation, before Trump.

Obviously I don't agree with his threats over Greenland, but acting like the end of NATO would be a huge loss for the US is ridiculous. Look at how obsequious European heads of government are towards Trump, even in the face of these threats; that tells you all you need to know about whom NATO truly benefits. They know if the US withdraws from Europe completely, they'll have to up their military spending considerably to plug the gaps, which will strain the welfare state.

>Yeah, they're the ones trying to gaslight Americans into believing that NATO hasn't been a completely lopsided relationship since the end of the Cold War, and that it makes complete sense that Americans be treaty-bound to defend nations like Sweden

Sweden just joined NATO in 2024, so what does the cold war have to do with it?

> a country where less than half of the population had a favorable view of us as a nation, before Trump.

Ok? Yes, it was looking like Sweden thought Russia was the bigger threat, so they joined NATO in 2024, but I guess Trump is making them regret this.

Apart from it just being morally and ethically righteous for rich countries to share their wealth globally, American "soft power" serves as a gesture of good will to the world so they will tolerate a strong dollar (so we get to play global economics on easy mode) and American hegemony generally. When we stop exercising "soft power" everyone will just resent our relative comfort and suddenly decide they aren't okay with us being on the throne anymore. And we'll find ourselves playing on hard mode because we'll be iced out from global trade.

Is it morally and ethically righteous toward the people of the rich countries? A country owes everything to its citizens and nothing to anyone else, and pretending otherwise led to resentment toward foreign aid including some realpolitik justified programs like USAID. When programs are sold to the people as being selfless while people are less fortunate than the social media influencers they watch every day, it’s only natural that they resent the government for seemingly giving resources away.

To be fair, the user can speak to NATO's value without assigning it a 'critical' value.

The US does not benefit from a stronger, more unified Europe. Thanks to NATO, "the west" has effectively become an empire in all but name, with the US having enough influence to be the de facto leaders of this empire.

If US pulls back from NATO, and Europe builds up military power to compensate, then the US loses this de facto leadership seat of an empire.

Today, the US appears in parallel to be doing two things:

1. Causing fragmentation in Europe, by promoting right-wing nationalist politics in the EU

2. Threatening to drastically reduce their role in NATO

At the very least we can both agree that these two efforts are completely in contradiction with each other, and it's very unlikely that Europeans will want to go for more fragmentation without the military power of the US on their side, right?

it's true that if the bet of creating fragmentation in the EU works out, then the destruction of NATO might also work out, because the US would not have created another military power with a hostile attitude to balance them.

If that bet is actually being made by Putin, hmm, I'm worried, but then again the implementation of the anti-NATO project is being run by Trump, so I think the EU just might come out on top. The whole Greenland thing for example, seems like an EU solidifying step, at the same time as it is NATO destroying.

The exact same thing happened with Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

> Today, the US appears in parallel to be doing two things:

You forgot another one: literally threatening two NATO members (Canada and Denmark, in form of Greenland) of annexation.

An attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. The US is threatening Canada, Denmark, and all of their allies.

How is the US promoting right wing nationalist policies in the EU?

Why would anyone listen?

Just one example: Elon Musk (at that time part of US government) tried to directly influence German elections by prominently featuring AfD (German right-wing extremists).

And appeared a UK far right rally to promote the idea that civil war was coming to the UK

But why would anyone listen? That's the real question. People can say anything they want but most people are going to ignore crazy.

Last February, JD Vance had a meeting with the AfD leader in Munich, after delivering a stupefying speech at the Munich Security Conference where he accused European nations of failing to defend free speech, calling out Germany in particular. He complained that the AfD was being ostracized and called for it to end. Marco Rubio followed up by calling the designation of the AfD as a right-wing extremist party as "tyranny in disguise."

Actions like these where US leadership is heavily distorting the facts make it much easier for the AfD to present themselves as a legitimate political movement allegedly being wrongfully suppressed by the “authoritarian” incumbents. The AfD currently scores 25% in representative nationwide polls, higher than any other political party in Germany. In some federate-state elections they scored over 30%, in one of them again higher than any other party. You can’t just ignore them as “crazy“.

They are often not that crazy. These days "extreme right wing" is what people call a party that wants to send some immigrants back.

Same kind of thing that got Trump elected.

These people are extremely good at "social" media like Tiktok etc. And the algorithms massively reward rage content and the platforms do not remove fakes.

> NATO is critical for the European powers (those not named Russia).

To be pedantic, Canada is a major non-European NATO member.

And then there are allies, some of them designated by Trump:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_non-NATO_ally

Or, they were, as there is no certainty under his rule.

Last time the US won a war without the assistance of any allies (and not against yourself), it was 1848 and you were fighing Mexico.

The US economy is only the largest if you don't adjust for purchasing power, at which point the US and EU are in joint second place way behind China, and separated from each other by a rounding error despite Brexit.

If the US wants to go alone, sure we'd miss you, but it's welcome to go in peace… so long as it doesn't steal Greenland on the way out.

This is effectively a defection, which in game theory may make sense but we're talking about a lot of lives and the established world order here. You mess with that at your peril, the idea that you can just pretend we're playing a game of Risk here is idiotic. But once you get past a certain point momentum takes over. We may already be there, maybe not quite, but this is about as dangerous as it has been in a very long time.

I agree, but due to the revealed preference of the current rhetoric and how this becomes a defacto method of departure, rather than the choice to depart itself.

It's a decision either way, whether announced or not doesn't really make a difference.

There was some measure to ensure that Trump could not take the US out of NATO, he seems have been trying to find some alternative that has the same effect and he may well have found it.

> You're assuming NATO is somehow critical for the US. It is not. NATO is critical for the European powers

only 1 country invoked article 5 until today and it's not in Europe)

Just a reminder that NATO troops have always been rallied by Washington and on top of that the US is the only country to have ever invoked article 5.

The European allies have put their money and more importantly blood into these conflicts.

Yes, we can all look at a geographical map and state that the USA is blessed geographically by being split by two oceans from anything major in the world and thus conclude that the US does not need Europeans to defend its borders.

In essence you're completely ignoring how US allies in form of NATO allowed US to thrive as the global military power by providing a deep web of support, logistics, bases, ports, intelligence and allowing the US to have a huge influence it has consistently leveraged for decades to its own benefit or needs. And that includes financial reasons (like buying US weaponry).

If US wants to pull out of NATO it is what it is, but this whole nonsense of NATO benefitting only the European allies when it's always Washington asking for other's blood and bases and logistics is just it: nonsense.

> US is the only country to have ever invoked article 5.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Treaty

> Following the September 11 attacks, the Secretary General of NATO, George Robertson telephoned Colin Powell and said that declaring an Article 5 contingency would be a useful political statement for NATO to make. The United States indicated it had no interest in making such a request itself; however, it would not object to the council taking such action on its own.[55][56]

> The US had the world's largest economy six decades before NATO existed.

Only because Europe was intent on destroying each other.

I wish europe was out of NATO. It does nothing to defend europe, bring us in wars we didn't ask for, and manufacture crisis European still suffer from (Syria refugee). It force its "allies" to buy defective weapons that are basically spyware, and still spy on them just in case. It force other allies to spill their blood in the middle East.

The only "good" thing it did was breaking Sarajevo's siege in the mid 90s, but event then it isn't actually clear if the Serb wouldn't have backed off anyway at the end of the month because they couldn't progress due to the UN presence. Still saved a few hundred civilian lives, in exchange for a thousand of proto-nazi, so i can't say it was bad.

No one will attack any EU country anyway, as long as france doens't change its nuclear doctrine, which, i will state here once again, include a "warning shot".

I am an American, so my view of the situation over there is not...well informed. But I have wondered whether the EU couldn't set itself up as the New NATO. All European (unless Canada decides to join you), and omitting some of the old NATO provisions that are causing problems, like the ability of one member country to veto everyone else (I'm looking at you, Hungary). Would it work? Or is the EU infrastructure to weak to do that?

The issue is that this kind of authoritarian military organization needs a clear leader, and without that, cannot function properly. That leader used to be the US. Even under Trump 1 (and even though i disagree with the decision), forcing NATO member to think about the 3% rule was ultimately something someone have to do (my preference would have been to lower the threshold), and that someone was the US. I also think it would need a pre-2008 France, who refused to be under the integrated command, to build a sort of trust and respect between members.

Ultimately though, the Irak invasion shattered the trust and status quo, and i agree 100% with people saying NATO must die. Alliance that are more than a reactive defensive pact and force member into attacking unrelated countries should disappear. Just get nukes, and pray you won't have to use them.

If not for NATO, Russia would have already invaded Baltic states, same as Ukraine, and maybe Finland.

NATO is a rootkit, a foothold for lateral movement in a literal sense, for the US in Europe. Is is not "critical" for anyone, in some theoretical sense, but it has proven very effective over the better part of a century to keep European military in check and guaranteed not to form any other alliances than with the US.

The EU itself was viewed critically from Washington until it could be proven that it had no intention of becoming a military alliance. So while it could be true that the US does not need NATO in a strict sense, the idea that it has not been net beneficial to the US is absurd. No Danish soldiers would have died in middle eastern wars if it wasn't for NATO.

6 decades before NATO was formed, Britain was the largest economy and financial empire. The US was up-and-coming but had not yet had its war with Spain to demonstrate their arrival. Nato was formed "To keep the US in, the Germans down and the Russians out" (per Ismay). The first clause is now inoperative. The second clause is being reversed by the various Euro states and the third, unfortunately, remains.

There was also a benefit to the US maintaining NATO - it could nudge/encourage/guide other countries into doing things it wanted done (such as Afganistan). This soft power is being discarded with NATO.

USA had this because it manufactured everything and got rich doing so.

NATO is / was USAs way of controlling Europe to have something against Asia.

It's time for us / Europe to let the USA being whatever and kicking them out

We (Germany) are quite well equipped making guns and tanks.

And btw it was our strategy to try to win over countries by NOT being the big bully but sure Russia and USA made it clear that this no longer works.

I hope USA leaves NATO and we kick them out sooner than later

Borrowing money from the rest of the world is critical to the US…

- USA will be free to enjoy Chinese submarines coming via GIUK gap (if POTUS keep doing what they are, these submarines will probably base directly in UK and Norway).

- If EU gets some more vertebrate leaders (something that tends to happen in times like this even in the most spineless countries), the first thing they will do is probably go get some allies in the Pacific to make up for this - and Pacific is much more sensitive to US.

Of course, all of this is phenomenally stupid and everyone will be far worse off.

NATO was formed as a defense against Russia. Which is a major threat to the US so I don't see why it's useless. We operate bases in Germany, Spain, and others.

If we need Greenland so bad because Russia is that dangerous then isn't NATO important?

This is precisely it.

People in the US have been living with the insanity of Trump for so long that they have become numb to it, and don't realize just how crazy and out of bounds every day is now. We continue on, because we have to, but it's hard to reevaluate everything every single day because it's so crazy.

Europe and the rest of the world are making completely rational decisions in response to the utter self-destructive actions taking place by the entire US political system right now.

The US population has been cowed into complacence and numbness, but the rest of the world has not yet, and will take appropriate action.

What we witness seems to be a lack of control due to a vicious feedback loop that eliminates dissenters and reasonable, moderate people from positions of power. The longer it stays active, the worse it becomes. In other authoritarian systems this is not so noticeable because their leaders act more rationally to begin with, although they tend to lose their grip on reality in the long run, too.

That's definitely going on. There's also something that I've heard called "reactionary centrism:" a feedback loop of people who think that truth lies in the middle between the two extremes, and also that assumes that no mainstream position in a political faction can itself be the "extreme." And that if they find that one political faction is doing something that seems extreme to them, that in the interests of fairness and centrism, they must start considering something that the other political faction does as equally extreme.

A lot of pundits that were center-left in past years fall into this trap, and normalize extremely right-wing positions these days because of it. They are stuck in an media and information environment of politics and, lacking many core values to guide them, they navigate to the middle of the media that they consume, assuming that the truth will be there in the middle just like it was in the past.

That's a very astute observation, thank you.

Right vs left makes the assumption there are two sides / options. I have long thought that the 'left' was too extreem socialist - that doesn't mean I think current 'right' is any better.

The far right and left are always going to be homes for extremists, by definition.

And also practicality. Extreme people are highly motivated to push their agenda, and that requires a party. They adapt and find a way to participate, one way or another. Often simply by ramping up awareness of the opponent party's inevitable extremes.

The real question is: how do the moderates in a party operate, and are they currently tolerated and reasonably well represented within the party.

(I am using extreme here to mean a lack of operating in objective reality, or a strong will to divide who "matters" from who doesn't. Usually they go together.)

I think it's also matter what percentage of each party you would consider extreme, and I realize that's subjective

Would Kamala have invaded Greenland? No, of course not, and you know it.

Plenty of people wouldn't even count her as "left".

you miss the point. The two sides are different they are not all viewpoints though.

There are more options for your own opinions but those don't matter.

In a representative democracy it doesn't matter what you believe only what the person you vote for believes.

I know political discussions on HN are discouraged but let me chime in as the one who made a comment higher in the thread: From a European perspective, both US Republicans and US Democrats are right-wing, except for guys like Bernie Sanders whose positions are close to a typical European center-left social democrat.

However, IMHO this doesn't really matter because in the US both the left and the right tend to score high on authoritarianism on the freedom vs. authoritarian axis on a two-dimensional political spectrum view if you look at their actual policies and views they defend. That even includes the almost nonexistent US far left. Strongly anti-authoritarian viewpoints are extremely rare in the US. Even self-proclaimed "libertarians" in the US tend to have fairly authoritarian views when you press them about it, they're usually merely anti-federal-government pro business right-wing neoliberals.

It's quite silly how people talk about the "left" in the US. There's barely any left present in politics. Much less "far/extreme left" or anything close to that. Nobody is really fighting for UBI, nationalisation of large utility-like corps, redoing healthcare completely, wealth taxes, dismantling the two-party system. And these ate still fairly chill ideas that recently happened in other countries, far from "extreme".

Your position is they are not extreem. Mine is that what we call left is already too extreem. However what the 'right' wants is different but mostly not in the direction I want to go.

A minority of people in the developed world would agree with your assessment that the American left is "extreme". It's mostly American "centrists" and conservatives that think so.

Again though, the original point is that left/right assumes there are extremes. All you have said is that in the rest of the world the "left" is more extreme.

If that extreme is good or not is a mostly a value judgement - there is no right or wrong answer. There are consequences to what answer you pick though.

The thing about extremes is you can make anything so by choosing a reference point. My reference is from the centerpoint of most prosperous and educated countries, because those are most likely to be ones with good ideas to be emulated. All decision we make are based on value judgements. Obviously there's no way to know what the most sensible thing is but in absence of perfect heuristics, "what other successful countries think" seems like a good one.

I know you said there are consequences to which one you pick, so we partially agree. But "There is no right or wrong answer" implies all value judgements are purely subjective, that all values are purely subjective. But I think we agree this couldn't be farther from the truth - these values _govern society_ - they affect everyone around us. Choosing bad values is genuinely harmful. Having the value that slavery is okay isn't just subjective, it's harmful and evil. Maybe if you believe slavery is okay, then you might disagree, but it doesn't make you any less objectively wrong. We could get into a big long thing about how this becomes objective, but suffice to say, if people do not want to be owned, and see being owned as harmful to them... then... they are being harmed.

It really doesn't matter what non-Americans think in this context; only Americans get to vote in American elections. (And additionally, I think you're essentially wrong that American politics is to the "right" of other developed countries in general.)

What laws or presidential orders have the US Left done that shows how extreme they are?

The US Left doesn't represent a broad enough population to win most national elections; certainly not enough to pass national law. They win local elections in places like SF or Seattle that were Harris +52 (e.g. contrast with Maduro's fake election only claiming a 9 point margin) and are over-represented in Dem party donors, which influences Dem representatives.

Nevertheless, they express extreme positions. Like "people should be treated preferentially by race" or "private property should be abolished/confiscated" or "the police should be defunded" or "transwomen should be allowed to compete in women's sports categories" or "illegal immigrants should receive taxpayer-subsidized healthcare." These are like 70-30 or 80-20 issues at the national level, with Leftists on the wrong side.

https://decidingtowin.org/

I asked for policies or laws they have implemented not whether they have expressed extreme views.

Ok. I think I adequately answered that. They're a minority faction; they can't pass laws. I think you know this, and your comment suggesting a faction must pass laws in order to be extreme (bluGill's contention) was a deliberate sleight of hand.

You can also use examples from when their was a Democrat president and Congress was controlled by them.

> The US Left doesn't represent a broad enough population to win most national elections;

What's your evidence for this?

The Democrats made small progress on healthcare.

Insurers couldn't deny coverage due to existing conditions

Kids could stay on parents until 26 even if they aren't in school

There were also subsidies for the lowest income people to help pay for open market plans.

This is something right? This is a step in the right direction?

If one party wants this and the other wants to dismantle then the first is left and the latter right.

It's bare minimum. It's "not-right". You don't normally call someone leftist for just saying "people should have access to healthcare without going bankrupt".

If I said I was going to lose weight and started jogging would you criticize me for doing the bare minimum after my first day?

If you're still eating doughnuts on the way in this stretched metaphor, yeah, I'd say you're doing the bare minimum.

Your use of the bare minimum implies a one time action with no further potential changes.

How do you know that was the case?

Because it was given up for a promise to talk about it later maybe.

> lacking many core values to guide them

This is a fundamental problem and one reason we're mired in this culture war. Social friction is caused by jostling based on group membership, and there's no common values-based scaffolding we can use to collaborate in building a better way.

I used to scoff when told to say the pledge of allegiance as a young person. Now, the closing words "liberty and justice for all" sound quite aspirational.

The people of the USA really remind me of the people of Russia: totally depoliticized. I think in the USA many people are really focused on a pointless culture war yet aren't politically active at all.

I think it's not so much the people that have been Russified as the institutions themselves. The media, big law firms, big corporations, have all given in to bullying and handed their power over to the authoritarian. Universities are on the cusp of doing so too. Even the Democratic Party has leadership so weak that in the current environment they will only talk about affordability and healthcare.

The media the public consumes only gives them culture war BS to work with, though. It started with Fox News, and that eventually cowed the rest of the media to give in to Fox News framing on every topic, since Fox News was so successful at winning eyeballs.

> The media, big law firms, big corporations, have all given in to bullying and handed their power over to the authoritarian

The media were supporting and whitewashing republicans for years now. For years now, they were full of bad faith false equivalencies. Hysteria whenever someone says true but negative things about conservatives. Somehow, only rural people count as real Americans, people in cities dont. It was important to "challenge" liberals while it was equally important to scold anyone who says something negative about republicans. Republicans must not be challenged, their actions need to be painted in the best possible light.

> big corporations

Big corporations supported Trump, because they thought he will get rid of pesky rules that prevents them from harming more people. They like when the law allows them to harm the environment, when it facilitates frauds committed by big companies.

> big law firms

Is there anything to suggest they were opposed?

>Even the Democratic Party has leadership so weak that in the current environment they will only talk about affordability and healthcare.

As opposed to what? The majority of people took away their power either by not voting for them or not voting at all.

Multiple universities have refused Trump's demands and Newsom even threatened universities in his state if they went along with it.

Democrats speak out about everything Trump is doing. They also worked with some Republicans recently on bills that Trump is against.

So please tell me how they are at fault?

Because it seems they are at fault when they are in power and they are at fault for Republicans when they are in power.

You're also generalizing the media. It's nearly impossible they are equally manipulative.

Since no political party will be perfect we should vote for the best option

> The people of the USA really remind me of the people of Russia: totally depoliticized. I think in the USA many people are really focused on a pointless culture war yet aren't politically active at all.

If anything, the opposite is true. Citizens who've never protested in their lives are now in the streets. Off-year elections have had record turnouts.

154–155 million people voted in the 2024 presidential election; that's 63-65% of eligible voters, the second highest percentage in the past 100 years.

Most Americans took democracy for granted; the possibility of losing it has caused Americans to wake up.

> 154–155 million people voted in the 2024 presidential election; that's 63-65% of eligible voters, the second highest percentage in the past 100 years.

And then trump got elected which is the reason of the crisis right now.

Perhaps American people wanted this?

Also, I think that America and Russia's probably the only biggest difference right now is protests and yea, I looked at some protests in America and how people are getting shot and even one veteran got detained who worked in iraq war for 3 days and was stripped naked and wasn't allowed to say anything and this happened a long time ago because of ICE

All because he looked brown. You could fight or die for the country & they would come to haunt you.

Veterans are calling ICE against the protestors even worse than how Veterans acted during the wars towards Iraqi citizens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y91VgKlJfLI

I have consistently called it out but most Americans from what I can gather want to desperately fit in the two boxes and not have independent support and especially when one party's effectively doing something like this. Bi-partisanship had always ended & you can't vote for anyone more than these two parties (one of which is causing an active war in greenland but the other party's better in this context but its also complicated and they still have very much an influence caused by lobbying)

Would have been super useful if they woke up like... A year ago. I'm afraid we might be past the point of no return. The relationships are already irreversibly damaged.

> You’re assuming the people in charge are sane, rationale, and value past decisions that have worked out.

No, it's an assumption that the people discussing the subject are sane and rational. It's one thing to argue that the US devaluing its wildly overvalued dollar is an effective default. Nobody would disagree with that, that's why we did it - to give us the continual option for rugpulls. But it's simply delusional and unserious to insinuate that the US won't just print paper to pay off nominal debt. It costs the US absolutely nothing.

If the US doesn't do it and defaults, it props up the value of foreign-held treasuries by giving debtors a claim, it doesn't reduce it. We happily let the presses run since 2008, running up the stock market by nearly an order of magnitude, and didn't see a drop of inflation until the last presidential term.

Also, it's extremely weird that European elites think of NATO as some kind of local government. It's simply a US-invented and controlled institution that it used to pressure Russia (the US's competitor in a bipolar world), has had nothing but a corrosive effect in Europe, and now they do the job for free.

Perhaps you're missing context here? The US Congress has established and frequently reaffirms a policy called the "debt ceiling", which requires the government to default on some of its obligations (including debt repayment) soon after reaching a certain nominal amount of debt. In 2023, negotiations to increase this ceiling lasted up until the week before the default would have begun, and 36 Senators still wanted to reject the deal and force the default. To me it does not seem insane or irrational to worry that next time there might be 41 Senators who want to default.

If we do simply print money to make the debt go away- foreign holders of that debt would benefit from being the first to sell for a more stable currency. The last to sell would be left holding the bag, would they not? Wouldn't this cause a run on the dollar and destabilize the world financial system?

What's a European Elite?

> There's no chance US will default on its debts

Until Trump says he's going to, then his boosters will declare its a genius maneuver and actually its Joe Biden's fault (Joe made him do it!)

Do you the think the EU and its individual country members from 1949 to present carried their fair share of the NATO spending ($55 to $60T), or troops and equipment deployments, or did they "default" on their side of the treaty? The US has paid 65 to 70% of the total of $1.4 to 1.5T/year from 2018 to 2025. That's 9.8T in 8 years (2018 included). Our soldiers, not theirs, carried the weight. If you go per capita, The US has spent an overage of $13 to $16T in 2025 dollars. Let's credit the account for that and see who owes who...

The intention of NATO is mutual support.

Did you forget that the one and only Article 5 call to date on NATO to members was for the USA following 9/11?

1. "The decision to invoke NATO's collective self-defense provisions was undertaken at NATO's own initiative, without a request by the United States, and occurred despite the hesitation of Germany, Belgium, Norway, and the Netherlands." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_NATO_Article_5_contingenc...

2. "I helped pass the bucket when you were putting out that brush fire, and now you tell me you won't run into my burning house to save my children?!"

3. Mutual support is more like "I'll help you with your main adversary and you'll help me with mine". What we have now is "Fuck no I won't help you with your main adversary, we oughta stay out of it--wait, how dare you suggest you won't fight my main adversary for me?!"

Comment modified to "for the USA".

> did they "default" on their side of the treaty?

I'm pretty sure they all answered the call when the US invoked Article 5 after the 9/11 attacks, no?

> The US has paid 65 to 70% of the total of $1.4 to 1.5T/year from 2018 to 2025.

Are you suggesting that the US has paid over $1 trillion into NATO each year? That would be difficult because the US military budget has never crossed $1 trillion. The DoD budget is going to be $900.6 billion in FY2026. [0]

[0] https://www.meritalk.com/articles/senate-passes-fy26-defense...

You're counting the entire US military budget as "NATO spending" which is not a useful way to look at things. We only contribute roughly $800M to NATO's shared budget (about 16%)[1]

[1]https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/us-contributes-16-nato-an...

Also, from what I recall, the reason why US military budget appears so high is also because pensions for retired personnel (the highest invoice) are included in the military budget, whereas they are not e.g. in Italy where it's a different budget.

Why are we counting US spending on dumbass wars?

The share of the European countries in supporting NATO has been higher than the official numbers.

For instance, when the East-European countries have been admitted into NATO they were forced to pay dearly for this, with many billions of $ for various lucrative and overpriced contracts assigned to some well-connected US companies (e.g. Bechtel), either for various infrastructure projects or for military acquisitions.

Those billions of $ do not appear in the US budget, but they have enriched certain US businessmen.

It is normal for a regular US citizen to believe that NATO has not been beneficial for himself/herself, because this is true, but what regular citizens are not aware of is that NATO has been a great source of profits for some US citizens who are more equal than the others.

US doesn’t really pay back the principle — States usually roll over. So there is a concern that the future batch of US treasury is less reliable. Plus there is also the risk of a depreciating USD.

If the US invades Greenland, and is at war with Denmark, will it still pay its debts to a Dane?

I'm quite sure that debts are paid in any case because not paying them would be a disaster for the bond issuer.

The procedure in times of war, at least by the US treasury is to put the payments in a blocked account that is then given to the citizen of the opposing country post war.

This is also why russian assets in US/EU banks, e.g., are only frozen: doing any other thing with them would instantly trigger the entire world to liquidate their holdings. Would Saudis or Indians or Danes hold assets that can be confiscated for geopolitical reasons?

Not quite... US can freeze certain assets. It did that for Iran for example. It froze the assets for a few decades (from 1979 until 2016). In 2016 it paid back the principal and interest: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-united-states-iran-an...

We're at a crossroads: If you don't behave like you will pay your debts then people are going to assume that you will not. Before you know it you won't be able to pay your debts even if you wanted to.

At this point, nobody trusts the US to pay anything. I don't have an opinion on whether they'll be able to pay their debts, but that's largely irrelevant. I wouldn't bet on them actually paying anything. You can't trust America

As far as I know, Trump is unique among American leaders in having mused stupidly in public about not paying all holders of US Treasury debt.

But I'm sure he would not do anything crazy. That's just inconceivable.

The Chinese still owe the US for railroad bonds.

A year or two of NATO countries increased contribution doesn't make up for decades of underinvestment ripoffs.

> That's just inconceivable.

The finance world:

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

This "solution" looks like the same problem to people holding the debt.

Ergo, they increasingly do not want to hold that debt.

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.

I think the above poster was trying to say, "there is no reason" for the US to claim Greenland. We have a treaty that allows us to build our military bases on the territory. If we want to do security stuff there, we already can.

The reason is that Trump wants to recolor the map and make the US bigger that it is, and be known as the one who did it. Nothing deeper than that.

Ironically, that will make some projects harder, especially if US laws such as NEPA start being applied on the Greenland territory. Hello environmental lawsuits from all sides.

Indeed, Trump seems to be suffering from Putin syndrome: he thinks that the best way to make the United States (and himself) glorious is through territorial expansion.

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

>problems..as well as US Bond holders

right, why would you want to hold US treasury bonds especially if the value of the US dollar is being destroyed? Even if I believed that the US wouldn't default on its debts, or come up with flimsy arguments why it shouldn't have to pay all of them

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/trump-says-us-might-have-...

it just doesn't seem like a super-smart investment at the moment.

If you sell the bonds, you'll end up with a lot of USD. If you try to sell that... You run into liquidity issues. Would probably cause a spike in gold prices as a default non-USD position. Oh, wait...

>all it has to do is to print more money.

Isn't that considered a "technical" default since you basically burned every debt holder by inflating your way out of debt? Almost like a TKO vs KO in boxing?

It is and for that reason it does not work.

> There's no chance US will default on its debts,

Why not? It has happened* before therefore it can/will happen again.

* (more or less). I would count significant debt restructure (1790) or replacing promised gold with paper (1860-1930, 1970) or even a significant delay (1979) as a default... even if it was temporary in 1979.

None of those were defaults. The US has never defaulted on its debt, as never did Germany or Italy (speaking of state issued bonds, not war reparations).

The bonds are only redeemable for USD. The Fed can always produce USD. So the Fed can always buy back any and all US bonds in existence.

They would have to actively choose to default.

Defaulting on the debt would be a great “emergency” that requires elections to be cancelled…

Thankfully elections are more or less impossible to cancel since they are scheduled by the states

Including the states that have replaced their election officials with Trump loyalists?

And having armed federal agents at the polling booths won’t be a problem? Or declaring it “stolen”, or simply ignoring the results, or refusing to leave office.

None of those are much of a stretch from all the laws already broken repeatedly

Are you disagreeing with the parent post or agreeing with them? I first read your comment as if it was disagreeing with them but then noticed the parenthetical "(as well as US bond holders)" in your comment, which seems to support parent's position.

Dollar inflation is a way for the US to default on its debts.

"Here are the dollars we owe you. They're worth half as much as the ones you paid us."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-plays-down-consequenc...

Now, Trump is an opportunist and in the psat his talk of default has been a way to throw rhetorical stones at his political opponents and keep himself in the news while he was out of office. Back in office, he has sought to project some kind of commitment to fiscal responsibility and financial stability.

But let's be real here, he's making threats against a fellow NATO member on the daily and openly saying he wants to annex territory. If he gets it into his head that the Danes or the EU are being mean to him and hurting his fee-fees, he's fully capable of responding in irrational fashion and has a toxic personality cult that will back him up. Be honest, if I took this month's headlines and took a time machine a year into the past, would 2025 you have believed my warnings about what would be happening 1 year into the second Trump admin?

I'm seeing it all and I still can't believe it. The most unbelievable to me is that the Senate and Congress seem to have no red lines at all.

The senate has abdicated the power to declare war, like what else is left in terms of real power? There is no seperation of powers any more, its everything the founders feared coming true

> There's no chance US will default on its debts, all it has to do is to print more money.

The US defaulting on its debt seems to be the plan.

The Mar-a-Lago Accord, or the Plan to Crash the US Economy -- https://umairhaque.substack.com/p/the-mar-a-lago-accord-or-t...

The EU threw all its baskets into a war it didn't need to fight, destroyed its energy independence, it's weapons, it's airdefense and huge parts of its air force. I don't think they have a lot of cards to play.

There an interesting analysis on whether the EUs threats on financial markets actually bear any meaning here:

https://x.com/Kathleen_Tyson_/status/2013314168250675456

Edit: March 2022 peace deal that Boris Johnson sabotaged

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/15/world/europe/...

What nonsense. We have plenty of cards to play and if 'having cards to play' is what stood between the USA and the relationship we had - or rather that we thought we had - for the last 70 years stood for something then that should not have been a factor in the first place.

This whole thing is due to one country not playing by the rulebook because they think they're big enough to fuck over the world. Guess what? No single country is big enough for that. Trump is way out of his depth when it comes to statesmanship and has replaced it with brinkmanship, that's not a valid substitute unless what you're looking for a a disaster.

What war are you referring to?

It is a war we must fight now, and must continue to fight. It is a war against oppression, against autocrats squishing their population for servitude. If nobody steps up to protect Democratic values, and the freedom of the people for self-governance, it is a slippery slope to hell.

If you really needed to fight, what you would have done was build a couple nuclear power plants, build some factories using Russian resources that they were giving you cheap, churn out some weapons and THEN go for war. What it did instead was watch the US blow up it's pipeline, harakiri its own nuclear power reactors, rent mobile Norwegian LNG terminals and make itself completely dependent on American weapons and Energy.

This is all preformative nonsense of EU elites that despise the European public and call Trump daddy to continue riding the Eurocrat gravy train. It's actually good for Europe that this mess is coming to an end. But the price was way too high and unnecessary.

What are you doing here then? Shouldn't you be in the trenches or in a factory making artillery rounds?

Or who is "we"?

Not op, but:

Paying taxes to fund an army.

The EU isn't doing any direct fighting in the Russian-Ukranian war, we are however donating and selling things, and being a refuge for those who quite understandably fled in fear of their lives.

Nobody's actually violated our sovreignty yet, we have no casus belli to go to war. But as the phrase the bullet cartridge is named after goes: Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Ukraine accepts foreign volunteers.

> If nobody steps up to protect Democratic values, and the freedom of the people for self-governance, it is a slippery slope to hell. reply

Ukraine hasn’t had an election in 7 years.

Not holding elections during a war does not mean you aren't a democracy.

Yes it does.

No, it doesn't.

Ukrainians have been repeatedly polled and the majority don't want to hold elections in wartime. That's democratic.

Holding an election while a foreign aggressor is occupying part of your territory and terrorising its population, enabling them to suppress and manipulate their votes: that's undemocratic.

The markets certainly don't think it's symbolism.

The "TACO" trade only works as a pump and dump for insiders for as long as the counterparties allow it to. It does not make sense for the G7 to support the enrichment of the American president for long.

Why would anyone believe that this is the last time a president will use Tariff threats in the next 12 months? it was reasonable to negotiate last year based on the observation that trade imbalances had been a growing issue for the American people. Using trade as a lever for territorial concessions is almost certainly a hard red line.

> really want to generate yield

Treasuries are not the best way to do this. Almost any investment is better than yeeting a substantial portion of your net worth into Treasuries or a savings account.

> really want to preserve capital

Fiat currency, or bonds that promise payouts in fiat currency, are excellent for short-term capital preservation and terrible for long-term capital preservation, as every government that uses fiat currency has succumbed to the temptation to print more of it whenever it seems expedient.

Gold or Bitcoins are far better for preservation of capital.

Burma Shave moment on the last line.

Potential returns may be better elsewhere but that comes with increased risk and reasonable funds balance their portfolio between returns and risk.

Bonds are considered low risk, but with the fiscal policy of the current US administration, the risk may have gone beyond the Danish's appetite.

Bitcoin on the other hand, which sane person would invest in such a volatile product as preservation of capital?

> This is where the financial rubber meets the road, actions have consequences

This is $100M. No one will notice it.

Be a bit realistic here.

Maybe you have no skin in the game, so you can be idealistic.

I fully expect this comment to age like milk and soon.

Even if it does, he still has a point. The first pebble that forms an avalanche is often symbolic. The symbol influencing others is how we get the avalanche.

This move by itself doesn't do much. The question is if it will influence others.

> This is $100M. No one will notice it.

That does not mean it is "symbolic". It is very real choice made out of rational reasoning. There is nothing to suggest it was not meant to be a symbolic gesture.

> debts

This is shoehorning. We’re threatening to go to war with Denmark. You don’t want to be owed money by folks who are attacking you.

> We’re threatening to go to war with Denmark.

We're threatening to go to war with Denmark and all of their allies.

A counter argument is that this is just a small pension company.

If all Danish Pension Funds etc. decide that we better divest because of imminent war, we are talking way, way more money. I have no idea how much, but Danish pensions are big.

This may indeed be a warning shot.

PFA, the largest private Danish pension fund already started reducing exposure to USD and UST last year https://www.pfa.dk/news-archive/2026/01/19/10/21/pfa-anbefal...

It's only symbolism if you believe that there's a 0% chance of US/Denmark hostilities. Otherwise - d'oh, yes, you don't want to risk being stuck holding IOU's from your enemy, which he is rather likely to dishonor.

In a "might makes right" world, Europe clearly needs more might, and then it makes sense to improve relations with China; not a lot of options.

The EU can't mend ties with China without giving up on Ukraine as China's FM Wang Yi has stated [0] on multiple occasions [1]. Additionally, in the Chinese foreign policy space, the EU is viewed as weak [2], and largely through the lense of the US-China rivalry (which is how the US views the EU as well now).

[0] - https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316875/ch...

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-russia-discuss-ukr...

[2] - https://fddi.fudan.edu.cn/_t2515/57/f8/c21257a743416/page.ht...

> The EU can't mend ties with China without giving up on Ukraine as China's FM Wang Yi has stated [0]

At the end of the day China cares more about Europe than Russia. Because that's where the real money is.

At the end of the day, their Foreign Minister and their entire foreign policy apparatus has consistently stated they will prioritize Russia over the EU for national security reasons (Central Asia, North Korea, Japan).

The EU signing an FTA with India on Jan 27th is also a negative sign for China-EU relations.

Foreign Ministries of all countries are known to speak the unvarnished truth at all time

Actions speak louder than words and China is supporting Russia.

> China cares more about Europe than Russia. Because that's where the real money is.

“Real money” aka resources are very obviously in Russia, not Europe.

Resources to fuel factories to sell to who ? They don't care about resources if they lose their clients.

EU-China trade only represents around 13% of total trade between China and partners, and is easily substitutable by China by a mix of ASEAN (most of whom have an FTA or GATT FTA with the EU), Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Russia (RU-China trade has a higher dollar value than DE-CN trade, which itself is 2x FR-CN or NL-CN trade), or even India.

As long as (eg.) France continues to support Dassault, Safran, and Thales - all of whom continue to support Indian [0][1] and Vietnamese [2][3] military modernization against Chinese aggression, CN-EU ties will never recover [4].

And that's just the tip of the iceberg depending on EU member state. Germany [5][6], Netherlands [6][7], and other individual EU states have similarly crossed Chinese redlines over the past year.

The DGSI is also actively prosecuting French nationals with ties to PLA adjacent institutions (public, private, and SoEs) for potential espionage risks [8]. Selon vos relations, vous pourriez également figurer sur cette liste, surtout après ce qui s'est passé en Nouvelle-Calédonie [9].

[0] - https://www.capital.fr/entreprises-marches/rafale-dassault-a...

[1] - https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/air-defense/bombe...

[2] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/europe-russie/2023/06/27/a...

[3] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/asie-pacifique/2025/12/15/...

[4] - http://www.iis.whu.edu.cn/index.php?id=2986

[5] - https://taz.de/U-Boot-Deal-geplant/!6144706/

[6] - https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article247750774/Ruestung-Tai...

[7] - https://www.nu.nl/economie/6372336/china-is-boos-op-nederlan...

[8] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/asie-pacifique/2026/01/14/...

[9] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/asie-pacifique/2025/02/26/...

Themselves? Why would China want to sell to European citizens more than to Chinese citizens, if they don't get something in return?

Then we just need to wait until the Ukraine situation is over in one way or another. China doesn't give a shit about Russia except as a (pathetic) counterweight to the US, I think. I mean they probably care about Russia's natural resources, too, but somebody is going to sell them, including to China, no matter what. It's the biggest thing that Russia has going for it economically (cf. the resource curse).

> China doesn't give a shit about Russia except as a (pathetic) counterweight to the US, I think

China needs to keep close ties with Russia due to national security interests in Central Asia and North Korea. Additionally, Russia maintains its autonomy by retaining military and economic ties with India and military deployments and listening bases in Vietnam and North Korea, which adds pressure on China to have to collaborate with Russia.

> ...counterweight to the US...

Chinese foreign policy is almost entirely viewed through the lens of the US-China rivalry. Europeans underestimate this to their peril. And to China, an unaligned Europe is still not pro-China enough.

Well then us Europeans are fucked regardless I guess.

> Beijing did not want to see a Russian loss in Ukraine because it feared the United States would then shift its whole focus to Beijing

How does this statement make sense though? I don't see the A -> B. The US pretty clearly does not want to see a Russian loss either, and seems more fine with Ukraine losing.

It should depends on how much the US wants Europe?

If the US does not want more of Europe, and Russia wins, the US could let Russia take over Europe -> focus shifts to China.

If the US wants more of Europe, and Russia wins -> focus would be off China.

If the US does not want more of Europe, and Russia loses -> it's mostly whatever, but perhaps focus shifts to China.

If the US wants more of Europe, and Russia loses -> focus would be off China.

Perhaps I'm just really daft.

> How does this statement make sense though? I don't see the A -> B. The US pretty clearly does not want to see a Russian loss either, and seems more fine with Ukraine losing.

Despite Trump, the US (and rivals of China like South Korea and Japan) have continued to supply the Ukrainian armed forces and their allies like Poland and Romania.

A protracted Russia-Ukraine War with the balance of power in favor of Russia means the US, SK, and JP remain bogged supplying Ukraine and it's allies like Poland and Romania, instead of diverting stock to the Asian front.

Additionally, China and Russia are increasingly collaborating to respond against Japan should a conflict occur [0] and North Korea is already an active participant in the Russia-Ukraine War.

> It should depends on how much the US wants Europe?

The issue is both the US and China view the EU as a regional power that can be pushed around - not as an entity that can retain strategic autonomy.

This is the crux of the EU's current diplomatic malaise - neither the US nor China view the EU as an equal, but rather, as a junior partner.

> Perhaps I'm just really daft

I won't say daft, but the issue is Europeans view themselves as deserving of being on the same table as the Americans and Chinese. Neither the Americans or Chinese see it that way now.

In order for the EU to build strategic autonomy, some very painful steps need to be taken which simply aren't being taken (as Draghi pessimistically pointed out a couple months ago) [1].

Additionally, periphery regions of the EU have increasingly started operating independently of the rest of the EU - as with China's CSPs with Spain [2] and Hungary [3]; Israel+India's defense alliances with Greece [4] and Cyprus [5] against Turkiye; and Poland coming out against committing resources to defend Greenland [6] - so a unified EU response is steadily degrading as members decide to take defense matters into their own hands.

Basically, if a naval standoff between Greece and Turkiye was to arise in the next 6 months in the Aegean Sea, would the rest of the EU sanction Turkiye (and thus lose a major defense partner in Ukraine [7][8][9] and the Baltics [10]) or ignore Turkiye (and thus destroy the EU and NATO defense commitment).

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-russia-discuss-ukr...

[1] - https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/business/20250916-mario...

[2] - http://en.cppcc.gov.cn/2025-11/13/c_1140641.htm

[3] - https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202405/10/content_WS663d3b83...

[4] - https://geetha.mil.gr/kyklos-synomilion-staff-talks-kai-ypog...

[5] - https://www.bankingnews.gr/amyna-diplomatia/articles/851003/...

[6] - https://www.reuters.com/world/poland-will-not-send-soldiers-...

[7] - https://ukrainesarmsmonitor.substack.com/p/ukraine-turkiye-s...

[8] - https://www.cats-network.eu/publication/ukraine-turkey-strat...

[9] - https://www.rnbo.gov.ua/en/Diialnist/3345.html

[10] - https://www.turkishminute.com/2026/01/13/nato-asks-turkey-to...

> Despite Trump, the US (and rivals of China like South Korea and Japan) have continued to supply the Ukrainian armed forces and their allies like Poland.

Military supplies have not slowed, that's true, the major difference since Biden is that European nations are now paying for it, but diplomacy and sanctions-wise, interest is waning for every month, it seems. Trump is even derailing the Davos summit. That was supposed to be primarily about Ukraine, but now it's about Greenland.

> A protracted Russia-Ukraine War with the balance of power in favor of Russia means the US, SK, and JP remain bogged supplying Ukraine and it's allies like Poland and Romania, instead of diverting stock to the Asian front.

I'll confess I didn't consider ROK and JP. That's a fair point. Poland and Romania are supply hubs, so I would've worded that "via Poland and Romania" and not made it seem like they are supplied for their own benefit.

> The issue is both the US and China view the EU as a regional power that can be pushed around - not as an entity that can retain strategic autonomy. > [...] neither the US nor China view the EU as an equal, but rather, as a junior partner.

There's no disagreement from me there, and I don't think I claimed that. Europe trying to improve relations with China would be with cap in hand.

> [...] the issue is Europeans view themselves as deserving of being on the same table as the Americans and Chinese. Neither the Americans or Chinese see it that way now.

Certainly many (not all) Europeans have been arrogant and babied with blinders on, and pretended not to have been glorified vassal states to the US via Pax Americana. I think that view is quickly changing. What irks me the most is that I still hear people talk about kicking out the US from NATO, not understanding that without the US, there is no NATO.

> Trump is even derailing the Davos summit. That was supposed to be primarily about Ukraine, but now it's about Greenland

The Intel Chiefs meeting about Ukraine is still happening [0]

> so I would've worded that "via Poland and Romania" and not made it seem like they are supplied for their own benefit.

Poland [1][2][3] and Romania [4] are also choosing to buy Korean weaponry instead of European.

> Europe trying to improve relations with China would be with cap in hand

It's difficult because the EU can't go cap in hand to China as long as

1. Anti-China leaders like Babis (CZ) remain in power,

2. Deals with Chinese rivals such as the FTA with India (Jan 27th), French modernization of the Vietnamese Armed Forces, the GCAP project with Japan, and Eastern European defense procurement from SK and Japan continue,

3. the EU remains committed to the "rules-based order" (ie. the existing status quo including de facto sovereignty for Taiwan),

4. EU member states continue to have American boots on the ground in the Baltics, Romania, Poland, Germany, and Turkiye

5. The EU does not sign a comprehensive FTA with China

China will always view the EU as not aligned with China. Both China and the US have adopted a "either you are with us or against us" foreign policy.

> What irks me the most is that I still hear people talk about kicking out the US from NATO, not understanding that without the US, there is no NATO.

It's a conundrum.

I think the only way an American NATO commitment will remain is if all NATO countries publicly commit to providing a security umbrella in East Asia.

Similarly, the EU will always be viewed as a rival of China's as long as 1-5 are not resolved in China's favor.

The EU can potentially build it's own space in a multi-polar world, but it will require making some very politically unpopular decisions around rearmament at the expense of social services; aligning with other regional powers such as Israel, India, UAE, KSA, Vietnam, Japan, SK, Brazil, Argentina, etc despite domestic political backlash; and having to back down to the US or China depending on the issue.

[0] - https://www.intelligenceonline.com/europe-russia/2026/01/19/...

[1] - https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2025/06/11/REUTAK...

[2] - https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2024/08/19/GY7PG4...

[3] - https://www.chosun.com/english/national-en/2022/12/08/6DXIBF...

[4] - https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/defense/20240710/kor...

>Despite Trump, the US

Not true. US is not giving any material support. Only intel.

> Well then us Europeans are fucked regardless I guess

Yes, in some ways. Europe is a LOT less important than it used to be a few decades ago. A much smaller proportion of the world's economy, population, or military power.

Wang explicitly said that support for Russia in the war is about diverting the US focus from China. If the US shows it doesn't care about Ukraine's future (and Wang told the truth), then I doubt Chinas support will stay as is for long. At most it will be a bargain in the coming EU-China negotiations.

Russia continues to be a significant player in North Korea and Central Asia as well, and this requires Russia-China cooperation. Additionally, if a hot conflit between the US+PH+JP+TW and China happens, China will have to utilize Russian supply and logistics chains to a certain extent (eg. the Chongqing–Xinjiang–Europe railway).

The US and France are both nuclear armed, including nuclear armed submarines, which are the ultimate defence deterrent.

It's hard to see any country wanting to get into conventional war with China, regardless of size of army and airforce - even the US is not going to do it unless actually attacked. At the end of the day if China seizes Taiwan (something Trump has made more likely by his seizing of Venezuala, now talking about Greenland, Cuba ..), then the US will just complain, create trade sanctions and/or tarrifs etc.

> The US and France are both nuclear armed, including nuclear armed submarines, which are the ultimate defence deterrent.

Except for France's ASMP-A nuclear warning shot (which is not a tactical option by the way), all other independent European nuclear options (French or British SSBNs) are not only strategic, but they imply wiping entire countries off the map. All options also depend on whether the French President or the British Prime Minister decides that this course of action is warranted.

If Trump indeed invades Greenland, shoving a French-made nuclear fireball in front of an American carrier battle group off the coast of Greenland would probably not be our first option. Besides the massive political cost of breaking the nuclear taboo, if kinetic actions are deemed necessary, deterrent also comes in conventional varieties.

Also, while the British nuclear deterrent might be operationally independent, it relies on American-supplied Trident missiles.

I'm pretty sure ASMPA-R is precise enough to be considered tactical, and the fallout small enough to easily consider its firing over blue water. Yes, the number of French tactical (sorry, "pre-strategic") nuke is limited (around 50), but i think that's enough of a detterent.

It's not about the precision, it's the yield. We've divested our tactical options back in the 1990s because our nuclear policy is one of strict sufficiency and all our nukes are above a hundred kilotons of TNT. That doesn't leave a lot of room to thread any needle.

Also, our nuclear doctrine says that it's a nuclear warning shot, meaning that the next step on the ladder is French-delivered Armageddon by SSBNs. We're not supposed to keep lobbing them in case of a persistent problem.

I was really thinking of a standalone Europe's deterrence against attack by Russia or China, not using them against the US!

If you asked De Gaulle, it'd be deterrence against anyone.

Literally every single one of Europe's prized industries are in the crosshairs of China's industrial ambitions.

But none of its citizens nor territories for the moment.

What "prized industries" are still there other than automakers? They're already boned, they just haven't accepted it.

China now leads the world on R&D and hard science, and is already making strides in chip design and chip making. How far off do you think a Chinese ASML is? Two decades at most? Or more like one?

And what would be the solution? I think we've all learned that protectionism doesn't work.

> What "prized industries" are still there other than automakers?

Automation Engineering, Materials Engineering, Biopharmaceuticals, Automotive Engineering (already mentioned), and Genomics.

China has made tremendous gains, but that should not undermine the fact that the fundamentals still exist within the EU, but Europeans on the Internet seem to vaccilate between chest-thumping Euro-nationalism (which is dead in the water and easily disprovable) or defeatism (which doesn't make sense and is also easily disprovable).

> How far off do you think a Chinese ASML is

1. ASML's EUV/DUV IP is owned and airgapped from the rest of ASML by the US DoE's JV with ASML called Cymer

2. Around 5-7 years, which is a loss from a Chinese NatSec standpoint and shows the Sullivan doctrine is still intact (keep China 1-2 generations behind the collective west in semiconductor fabrication capabilities).

> And what would be the solution? I think we've all learned that protectionism doesn't work.

The EU never actually tried protectionism or industrial policy. When most other countries and trade blocs were flouting the WTO, the EU kept trying to prop it up in order to negotiate with the US.

Interesting how the handful of comments I made that are pro-EU and shore up European strategic autonomy get downvoted, yet any comments I make that undermine European strategic autonomy in a manner that is aligned to that of think tanks at Fudan is upvoted...

"How did you go bankrupt? Two ways: gradually and then suddenly."

--Ernest Hemingway

With Trump pressuring the independence of the central bank, this doesn't seem symbolism at all.

It might very well be that the USA will face a period of high inflation soon if we continue down this path of high government spending and no independent central bank to put a break on it.

And I can't even understand why this obsession of lowering interest rates in the USA. The economy is doing great, there's no shortage of investment money going around. There's really no reason to lower in the interest rates before we tackle the leftover inflation that still comes from the COVID measures.

It's Trump's personal insecurities playing again and not allowing anyone to tell him "no". What a child.

> And I can't even understand why this obsession of lowering interest rates in the USA.

You have to understand how much the middle and lower classes can become addicted to cheap lines of credit made accessible to them.

Trump is making China great again

If this is a symbolism, then why 30YR Treasuries are YTH despite FED rate cuts throughout the year?

> It's all a sliding slope until it reaches a breaking point and falls off like a cliff.

"How did you go bankrupt?"

"Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

* https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/102579-how-did-you-go-bankr...

Far more important, I'd say, are the European countries having already got together to discuss joint sanctions/tariffs against the USA (their nominal NATO partner) if Trump moves to seize Greenland.

Macron has also said that he wants no part of Trump's (billion dollar entrance fee) "peace board" that he's going to be pushing at Davos.

A divorce from the USA would certainly hurt Europe, but it will also hurt the USA and it's ability to defend itself if it loses access to European intelligence and ability to have forward located military bases and refueling locations.

The Republican's are really shooting themselves, and the US, in the foot here by not standing up to Trump and therefore indicating that all this craziness is Trump rather than an enduring US policy that they support. Even if they flip flop when Trump is out of office, the rest of the world is never going to trust the US again.

Precisely. If the USA wants to be trusted at all it needs to act now or it will be too late. This is the precipice and without action from Congress & the Senate the rest of the world will make up their own mind about the country as a whole. This is probably one of the most expensive moments in history.

One of the most expensive moments in history so far

Fair, but since we can't look into the future that's an obvious thing. Every maximum is always a maximum 'so far'.

It's more of a Simpsons reference haha, sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfpPArfDTGw

The Simpsons have passed me by. The same with the Teletubbies. I know they exist but I don't feel compelled to go and watch any of it. Life's too short.

Life's too short to punch down on what others like, too; but here we are.

Take care.

I'm not sure if I would like it or not, I just haven't been exposed beyond mentions such as yours and the occasional still, and I have a lot on my plate (not enough to forego HN though ;) ).

I feel a bit conflicted on this.

On the one hand I do want someone (or a group of someones) to stick it to the US and "teach it a lesson". I see the US as a bully, and I want to see the bully get punched in the nose.

On the other, I don't wish harm to the US (mostly the people). Also because the US backed against a corner can have potentially devastating consequences for the rest of the world.

It’s crazy to see how Trump has made the U.S. look like a worse partner than China, or at least just as bad.

Way worse. I live in China but I'm French and I was saying to my gf yday night, to my own surprise: "China has never humiliated, insulted or threatened in such a gross, childish, pointless way. We might be better off supporting a Taiwan reintegration and abandon Ukraine to Russia for an Eurasian alliance, than let the US talk to us like that - even frigging Putin never crossed the line to mockery as often as Trump and his goons".

Maybe I overreact, but what a change of opinion from my grandad who saw the US land in Normandy... This credit we gave them is running out and I'd rather have a cold calculating dictator that tells me the population is too stupid to vote (common feeling in China) than an unstable mercurial dictator whining he didn't get a pretty prize.

And if Trump wants to talk about boats 500 years ago, how long does he think we've been in friendly contact with Russia and China ?

It's like Trump and his followers are not aware how fragile this entire system is, and if they are aware, they don't seem to be aware of the risks, and that the most likely outcome is that the world is in a less good condition than before. A big child that got the wish granted to play president.

> 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.

The better move would be to invest internally. China wants a hegemony, whether they acknowledge it out loud or not. As Europe and Canada start seeking Chinese investment, the Chinese will seek something in return. They're not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.

I'd also like to think that the American/Western investment in places like China and Russia are part of how we got to where we're at now. It became apparent for Western capital that human rights aren't necessarily compatible with economic growth and can even run contrary to it. Eventually that mindset permeates a society, and it has in the US. A large plurality of the population thinks that a billionaire strongman is necessary to remain competitive in the global marketplace. This mindset didn't show up overnight, it was a slow burn.

Some of it was fueled by the demographic transitions of the last fifty years, some by American economic anxiety - which was caused by American/Western investment in China - and the rest of the West has the same problems in those departments that the US has to one extent or another. The European/Canadian welfare state that provided protection from some of the economic anxiety that was seen in the US must get its funding from somewhere, and you get it from taxing economic expansion. Economic expansion relies on at least some population growth. Right now, you don't see native population growth in most Western countries. They have to have people immigrate in to stay competitive. In pretty much all of these countries, you've seen at least some friction between the "native" population and immigrants. You'll see more of that in the future, and that's how the Canadian/European Trump will show up. Doubly so in Europe, because their nation-states are partially defined in terms of ethnicity.

>the Chinese will seek something in return. They're not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.

of course they aren't but it's also obvious what they want. Design a new global order where they have a seat at the table and get to determine standards, processes and technologies. That's the point of investing in telecommunications, cars, and so on. But what they don't want is annex European territory.

China is still ambitious enough to imagine itself as creating new international orders rather than just creating disorder, and so they'll likely make for a better partner for any civilized country than powers that descend into 19th century colonial neo-imperialism run by people who may as well come straight out of the Warhammer universe.

> But what they don't want is annex European territory.

They've more-or-less directly supported Russia's ambitions in Ukraine. If they don't want to annex your territory but are willing to support someone who does in the bloodiest war on the continent since the end of WWII, is there really a difference? They know they aren't in a place to project power over Europe, but they have a partner that absolutely is. I'd keep a close eye on how forgiving European countries have to be of Russia in order to curry favor with the Chinese in the coming years.

> so they'll likely make for a better partner for any civilized country than powers that descend into 19th century colonial neo-imperialism run by people who may as well come straight out of the Warhammer universe.

The problem is, deep down, none of that means anything to the ruling class of any European nation. If it did, Russia doesn't get the chance to do anything of consequence internationally after their incursion into South Ossetia in 2008. There would be no ambiguity regarding the future of Taiwan vis-a-vis control under the PRC. There wouldn't be investment deals now.

Wang Yi, when he was in Brussels earlier last year was pretty blunt and said that if China wanted Russia to win the war would be over and given the scale of China's defense and industrial sector that's probably true. They don't actually recognize Russia's territorial gains. From their perspective, this is the middle position. They simply can't afford Russia to lose, they're dealing with their own US problem.

And mind you I'm not very sympathetic what we in Germany call "Russlandversteher" but it's also become clear, the war in Ukraine not withstanding, that Russia isn't an existential military threat. There'll come a time, maybe after Putin is gone, when there's an opportunity to have a security architecture that covers the whole continent. A Europe with Russia even though it's impossible now wouldn't be this vulnerable. And at some point this has to be resolved because it's untenable long term.

Kissinger wrote a book in 1994 Diplomacy where he pointed out that the biggest threat to European independence is over-reliance on the US, not China or Russia simply because of the predominance of the US militarily and economically. And if the US continues to be this beligerent, unlike Russia it is an existential threat.

> Wang Yi, when he was in Brussels earlier last year was pretty blunt and said that if China wanted Russia to win the war would be over and given the scale of China's defense and industrial sector that's probably true. They don't actually recognize Russia's territorial gains. From their perspective, this is the middle position.

I'm sure that's of incredible comfort to the citizens of Ukrainian cities that have missiles raining down upon them; missiles that contain electronics that were made by China as a direct result of Western embargoes. It's the middle position, helping a belligerent tyrant slaughter civilians, in a quest to be tzar in everything but name.

> They simply can't afford Russia to lose, they're dealing with their own US problem.

Of course they can. Same with North Korea. If they'd sworn off those two nations a decade - or more - ago, they'd just be sitting there with sweet Western investment cash and far less American antagonism. But they need those two nations to cause problems, to break rules, and to generally paint the world order as a farce. Otherwise, what vacuum are they to fill? They'd just be a bigger Japan: existing in an America-centric world order, comfortable, downsizing, and utterly without incident. That's not going to give the CCP the external threats it needs to justify its totalitarianism.

> that Russia isn't an existential military threat.

> Kissinger wrote a book in 1994 Diplomacy where he pointed out that the biggest threat to European independence is over-reliance on the US

Ah, that old ghoul. The very embodiment of interests over values. Hopefully a Cambodian child is dropping bombs on Kissinger's village somewhere.

Regardless, his assessment is flawed. The US begged, for decades, other NATO members to take defense seriously after the creation of the peace dividend at the end of the Cold War. With the exception of former Warsaw Pact countries that wanted to make damned sure the Russians stayed out, that seemed to fall on deaf ears until relatively recently. During the pustule's time in office, there has been discussion of moving the strategic focus from Germany, which was not particularly warmly received in the area around Ramstein. [0]

As for whether or not the Russians are an existential threat, well, for now, no. Despite Trump's best efforts, at least as of this writing, Article 5 still exists and any sort of mass movement towards NATO territory by Russia would likely quickly decay into a thermonuclear war that would involve the entirety of the American and Russian strategic arsenals. Life on this planet as we know it would be over. Get rid of that - and the pustule seems like he wants to - and there would be no effective counter against Russian WMD forces, because they would have an advantage over France and the UK in such a conflict. The likelihood of Russia becoming an existential threat increases if NATO's current configuration breaks apart.

Any time someone has thermonuclear warheads pointed at your cities, they're an existential threat. I'll leave it to you to guess whether the US or Russia has more targets in central and western Europe.

[0] https://fortune.com/europe/2025/03/05/ramstein-germany-us-ai...

>they'd just be sitting there with sweet Western investment cash and far less American antagonism

no they wouldn't, we know this because we here in Europe are facing American antagonism and a trade war right now and we're American allies. The Chinese on this have been vindicated, not only has the United States been waging a trade war on China, it's now waging a trade war with threats of annexation on her allies. They were right and we were naive.

I'm not claiming China is morally spotless or doesn't clash with us on countless of issues, but they act rationally, long term in their own interest, and their view of the world is being vindicated by the week at this point. If I was China I'd keep Russia and North Korea around as a buffer too if I saw what the US pulls on their friends.

Mind you Denmark is a country that lost soldiers for the US when Article 5 was invoked. The US is the only country to actually invoke it. They were so absurdly pro-American they spied on us for the US[1]. And this is what you get for it? If that's how the biggest military power and up until now guarantor of global order acts, yeah people are going to hedge their bets quickly. Russia is weirdly enough small fish in comparison.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/denmark-helped...

The problem is that the EU and China are both looking for export markets to fund their economic growth, unless EU blows up it's welfare system and prints money like the US, the two are competitors.

But doing that would undermine Euro's credibility, as the EU is a loose union of countries with their distinct interests and politics, also member countries would compete on outspending each other as the Euro would have been essentially free money, a Euro debt crisis on turbocharge.

So, the EU can never print like the US. The EU and China will be rivals.

The article has a quote from the investment director saying it is not symbolism. "The decision is rooted in the poor U.S. government finances, which make us think that we need to make an effort to find an alternative way of conducting our liquidity and risk management"

> It's all a sliding slope until it reaches a breaking point and falls off like a cliff.

Would it be a gradual decline or a step change after some point?

I believe this is actually the center of the matter. Trump surely does not represents all the Americans, but I believe he is currently acting in a so aggressive way because America has a problem, that is: for years governments of other countries are selling more and more US bonds (because the United States look progressively less able to pay back), and given the US huge debt, this would mean an incredible problem for a country that for decades spent ways more than it was possible or wise (and, this spending also helped to fuel the IT strong position the country achieved). So, now, in order to have compelling arguments to ask for certain conditions, Trump is acting in this way, since in order to have something that others don't want to give to America, America needs to be a problem the other countries. This is a way to amplify your position in the world, that is otherwise not as strong as in the past. We used to watch Russia doing something like that, and could not expect to see this from USA. But things evolve...

One of the strongest reasons to hold onto the dollar is the stability and finances of the U.S. government.

But in the last month, the U.S. President has pushed for a criminal investigation of the Fed chair because he isn’t doing what the U.S. President is asking, has threatened to start a war of conquest against a NATO ally, has simultaneously said increased taxes on imports will reduce the deficit but also that he will distribute it all away, has used import taxes as a geopolitical weapon, has said he runs Venezuela and one of the first things he’s done is injected the US government ahead of all other creditors.

All of this in the first few weeks of 2026. And every one of these actions destroy the very basis of why the world has confidence in the finances of the U.S. govt.

Well if the Fed Chair did commit a crime, it’s probably better that be investigated and resolved. I wouldn’t put my money in a country where the monetary authorities commit crimes with impunity. I’m not sure what your other points have to do with the monetary authority.

That “if” is doing a lot of work.

When did you stop beating your wife?

Maybe you should look into the context. The investigation is supposedly over lying to Congress about the true cost of the renovation of the federal reserve HQ. Despite being a topic week within the current president's wheelhouse, this is incredibly flimsy even if true. It sure looks like a politically motivated attack because the Fed chair won't let Trump dictate monetary policy - thank God!

> It's symbolism

It’s not. If we go to war with Denmark, there is a real chance we sanction them as well.

Shocking how the US has pushed all global allies into putting more trust in China. And by shocking I mean the thing where everyone saw it come screaming a mile off.

> It's symbolism

Ah no... this is people's money, and they likely came to conclusion the US bonds are inconsistent with the funds goals and risk appetite. Within the first few paragraphs of the article you see this:

> The decision is rooted in the poor U.S. government finances, which make us think that we need to make an effort to find an alternative way of conducting our liquidity and risk management

If you're dealing with peoples pensions, even if there are higher growth portion of the funds allocation, you've got to make sure there are portions of the fund that's stable enough to be regularly liquidated to send out regular payments.

Given the whole hoo-ha with trump trying appoint their own guy into the federal reserve, it isn't that surprising the fund managers have decided to decrease their allocation.

The deliberate push to alienate allies pushing them to the other pole (China), is setting up the stage for confrontation. It can then become self-evident China is out to eat the USs lunch so they need to be dealt with. And all the years of China this, China that, will become true and it will be much more palatable to go hot over China or anything else. China will become the new defacto evil empire and everyone in the US will nod in agreement and decide it's time to do something about it. It's gaslighting at a global scale and it's working fine. Probably something like 2027. I don't know if those Macron messages are real but in Europe we are cooked because it's okay to not want global domination, but it's bad when you're being manipulated and you don't even realize why.

So much of the way the United States works is having a nearly limitless source of borrowing at low rates in the form of selling treasury bonds.

The further we get away from that being true, the more precarious things become.

We're under active, malicious attack by 1/3 of our own eligible voters. Not clear how this will play out, as I can't think of any historical parallels.

It’s a lot like the rise and presidency of Andrew Jackson.

It’s over 50% and there are plenty of plainly obvious parallels both historical and contemporary.

Far far below 50%. The media tricked some people into supporting Trump by perpetuating his obvious lies unchallenged, but now that people see what Trump is doing he is underwater on all issues.

Most other contemporary and historical parallels of authoritarians show far higher popularity of the authoritarian. Trump is nowhere close.

The biggest risk to the US is that the media is completely compromised, as are leadership at many institutions. Even in Silicon Valley, the loudest and most vocal leaders are self-destructively supporting this madness that will destroy the US's wealth, and their future wealth gains too.

The media tricked some people into supporting Trump

You could almost make this case in 2016, but anyone who fell for Trump in 2024 will just fall for the next con man to come along. At some point we have to take responsibility for our own choices and stop blaming the media.

The truth about Trump was out there, and it was not hard to find.

Added here due to rate-limiting:

2024 was right after voters had seen Biden at that debate, while all the "responsible" people insisted he was sharp and smart. It really was more unique than its given credit for.

Both candidates were a disgrace to the parties who propped them up. However, nothing Biden said was any worse than what Trump said about immigrants eating peoples' pet dogs and cats.

At the Biden/Trump debate, the choice was between malevolent, incoherent senility and plain old garden-variety senility, and the voters choose poorly. At the actual election, there were even fewer excuses for voting for Trump, as Biden was no longer in play.

2024 was right after voters had seen Biden at that debate, while all the "responsible" people insisted he was sharp and smart. It really was more unique than its given credit for.

No, it's largely the media. Compare what passes for political journalism from, say the New York Times to the rest of the world and it becomes clear that the US media politics coverage is in its best form mere both-sidesism.

Most people who were tricked were people who don't pay much attention, and might only get a few articles of news, if anything. When the media doesn't tell people that there are plans for mass deportations at numbers that require legal immigrants to be deported, then the media is lying to its consumers. When the media is not willing to report that Project 2025 is Trump's plan, and instead places Trump's lie about ignorance on the same footing as the reality of people saying it is his plan, then the media lies to people.

Media consumers expect that journalists will react normally to extreme news. But instead the media is normalizing extremely unpopular and ridiculous policies that everybody would hate if they knew what the media knew.

I know large families of Mexican descent who have lived in the US for generations, that had many Trump voters in the recent election, from people that don't follow much news, and believed ridiculous things like Trump being a "Peace President." As you might imagine, there's a bit of intense discussion these days about how they were tricked into voting for secret police that will imprison family members and detain them for days without cause. If somebody reads a single article, they shouldn't have to read 5 more in order to get the real story merely because the media was more concerned about normalizing Trump's views than it was about reacting like a normal person would to the insanity of Trump.

Do people have personal responsibility to be better informed? Sure! But when they go to CBS they should get a real news article, not glazing of the most radical opinions out there on the political spectrum.

It is 49.8% (people who voted Trump in 2024) of 64.1% (people who voted in 2024), or 31.9% or ~1/3 of the total eligible voting population, which is what your parent states.

You understand how statistics work, don't you? When you have 64% of the population voting, that's a pretty big sample size, enough so that you can reasonably extrapolate that the 49.8% share _probably_ holds across the rest of the population, give or take.

Put another way, if someone asked you to estimate what the split between the one third of the population that didn't vote was, what would you use as a reference point? Social media posts? Vibes? Or maybe polls leading up to the vote that showed the same roughly 50-50 split found in the actual results?

I don't think that you understand how that part of statistics works. You are said that we have sampled 64% of the population, so we can extrapolate to the rest. That works if the sampling is sufficiently random. But in this case the "sampling" is people who voted, so an entirely (self) selected population, and pretty much not random at all (i.e.: people who were mostly less decisive about their opinions/vote).

So I don't think we can extrapolate confidently at all. So we really don't know whether it holds for the rest of the population at all.

> So I don't think we can extrapolate confidently at all

But the parent was — the implication being that if the other third had voted, surely they would have voted in greater proportion for Democrats than Republicans. That’s based on nothing but vibes and assumptions. I argue that the 64% share of people that actually did vote give you a lot more confidence in how the remaining third probably would have voted than whatever the parent suggested. It’s at least a starting point for extrapolation.

The parent comment was edited after my reply.

Yes, sorry; I added 'eligible' to emphasize how many people failed to vote at all.

Unfortunately, my understanding based on reported surveys [1] is that if the non-voters had voted, Trump's margin of victory would have been even greater. If that's the case, then those who say that my 1/3 figure is too low are correct.

1: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/26/2024-election-turno...

Failing to vote still isn't an "active" attack, so I think you're technically vindicated. (But yes, the situation is dire either way.)

That is the problem though - a third of the US population is basically lunatics... This will not go away. And one cannot keep a third of the population "down".

It's not uncommon for democracies to be subverted by a minority party.

Nazis did it in Germany. They lost parliamentary seats in the November 1932 election, but remained the largest party with 33% of seats. The next year the country was already a dictatorship.

Communists did it in Czhechoslovakia in 1948. They led a coalition government but had just lost the previous election.

I'm worried that United States 2027 will be added to this list. If MAGA sees their grip on power starting to fade after November elections, they may try increasingly extreme measures.

I mean, they already tried it on J6, we just got lucky it failed and yet didn’t learn our lesson

Thats why its really fricking important to have more than two parties, so coalitions can be formed to counter such things.

At the other end of the spectrum, the two countries with the strongest form of proportional representation, also have problems: politics in The Netherlands is nearly paralyzed, it becomes harder every election to form a coalition. And Israeli politics radicalized anyway.

Maybe indeed the relatively best solution is in the middle: proportional representation with well-chosen thresholds.

When you say "nearly limitless" source of borrowing, the limit is the gain in global wealth. The US has been siphoning off a huge chunk of world wealth by printing dollars to serve as the currency for that wealth.

All the people complaining about "US Debt" and $26T of "net investment" or whatever don't realize that this is/was the benefit of the US being stable, strong, and friendly.

When the US is unstable, weak, and a bully, as it is now, all that goes away. The bill comes due, and the US will pay dearly. The rest of the world will pay nothing.

The US is more stable than the powers of Europe (which have constant political upheavals, snap elections that completely remake the political landscape, etc). You're confusing Trump's mouth with how the US political system actually functions.

Just because the US changes political direction, that doesn't equate to instability. Its aims are changing, like it or not, good or bad. The US deciding it wants Greenland is not a proof of instability, it's a change in the strategic goals held by the people controlling the superpower.

And the US is at a high level of strength, not weakness. Its large corporations hold sway over the globe in a manner the likes of which has never been seen before in modern history. Its military has force projection to nearly every point on the globe, with hundreds of global military bases. Its national wealth is at an all-time high. Its stock markets are at all-time highs. Its median income is at an all-time high. Its median disposable income is at an all-time high. Its housing wealth is at an all-time high.

> Its median income is at an all-time high. Its median dispoable income is at an all-time high. Its housing wealth is at an all-time high.

Then why is everyone so damned unhappy all the time?

The US used to be a much more homogeneous country, which certainly makes it a lot easier for everyone to be on the same page because of shared cultural values.

That has changed dramatically in the past few decades and with it, places where Americans can find common ground.

Other western countries are going down the exact same path, just a bit behind us.

I love how racism gets snuck into everything these days.

No, homogeneity doesn't cause happiness.[1] And the US was always less homogenous than other "western" countries.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Japan#Suicide_proble...

> No, homogeneity doesn't cause happiness.

Funny though how all those European countries everyone on HN and Reddit point to as "how things should be" are all pretty ethnically and culturally homogenous, though that's changing rapidly. Interestingly, cracks are starting to appear.

> And the US was always less homogenous than other "western" countries.

The US was 85-90% white in 1965. That's pretty homogenous.

What is considered "white" now certainly wasn't in the past. It took a long time before Italians were considered to be part of the in-group. Irish and Italian people were considered an inferior race and suffered extreme racial prejudice when lots of immigrants came from those nations.

And that evolution itself tells the story of the US itself. The people in non-homogenous neighborhoods are happy and harmonious, but outsiders scared of cultural differences cause racial strife and discontent.

Those who let themselves get worked up about racism are the problem, not the non-homogenous races.

That barely scratches the surface of the bigotry that existed. Protestant or Catholic, Jewish or Gentile/Christian, Eastern European or Western European, Anglo or non-Anglo, Anglo + German or non, Southern European or Northern European - these are all lines people use to discriminate upon that I can think of just off the top of my head. That's without even getting into skin color.

You're confirming what I said earlier. There are both happy and unhappy "homogenous" countries. There's literally no correlation.

Instead of stopping there you're regurgitating, and it's unfortunate I'm confirming Poe's law, Mein Kampf.

> The US was 85-90% white in 1965. That's pretty homogenous.

I think you know nothing about culture, ethnicity, or the history of bigotry, xenophobia, and racism in the US if you can confidently make that statement. You're reducing all the diverse peoples that made up the nation into a single group based on their skin color.

> There are both happy and unhappy "homogenous" countries. There's literally no correlation.

There’s multiple components to what “happiness” entails. One might argue that a society filled with numerous cultures and ethnicities all vying for their own interests can make for quite a bit of unhappiness. E.g., if everyone was white, there’d be no hand-wringing over white supremacy. If everyone was straight, there’d be no hand-wringing over LGBT representation, and so on. That’s not saying that other social ills can’t exist in homogenous societies, but they do have fewer due to having more shared identity and values. Don’t be dense just to make a point.

> You're reducing all the diverse peoples that made up the nation into a single group based on their skin color.

Like people do today when lumping everyone of various ethnicities into the “white” bucket and decrying “whiteness”? If it’s a valid classification today why can’t we use the same term retrospectively?

> E.g., if everyone was white, there’d be no hand-wringing over white supremacy... Don’t be dense just to make a point.

You think people didn't find other ways to dislike each other when they were all "white"? Like I already said you don't know history very well or you're the one being "dense to make a point".

> If it’s a valid classification today why can’t we use the same term retrospectively?

I can't speak for today or say if it's valid. But that's not how things were back then because the people themselves didn't believe that. You've never heard the slurs people used for different ethnic and religious groups that all hailed from Europe and had light skin? The amount of "hand-wringing" about JFK being the first non-Protestant president? There was no feeling of "homogeneity" back then either based solely on skin color.

The combination of median disposable income and housing wealth being at all time highs is a big part of it!

Those with housing have locked others out of housing, causing lots of "wealth" that those with housing don't even consider to be wealth. They think it's just "normal" and don't realize the massive advantage it gives them over everybody stuck renting.

But that's symptomatic of all the other inequality. Housing is the biggest expense, and most obvious form of rent extraction that the wealthy use to exploit those without wealth, but it's not the only one.

> The US is more stable than the powers of Europe (which have constant political upheavals, snap elections that completely remake the political landscape, etc). You're confusing Trump's mouth with how the US political system actually functions.

this is satire right?

the UK's system is close to 1000 years old

I doubt the current US system will last another decade

> with hundreds of global military bases

all of which will evaporate the moment it does anything to Greenland

The UK's current system is realistically about the same age as the US, their first PM was in the 18th century. Unless you're claiming the King/Queen is still in control of everything. You can't have that premise both ways.

> The UK's current system is realistically about the same age as the US

no, it's evolved continuously from 1066

by the time of the US rebellion, the king was already neutered

> their first PM was in the 18th century.

the title of "Prime Minister" is a modern invention (and not a formal position)

there has been a Lord High Treasurer since the 1100s

a constitutionally limited monarchy is older than the US

meanwhile the modern US seems to be a absolute monarchy that isn't constitutionally limited

> The US is more stable than the powers of Europe ....... You're confusing Trump's mouth with how the US political system actually functions.

Eh?

If the US political system was stable and fit for purpose, the US would have got rid of the wannabe dictator by now; or at least held his power in check.

EDIT: Amusingly, I'm being downvoted by a class of American who refuses to believe their way might not be the best after all. Even when the facts are staring them in the face.

As a US citizen, I agree with you that if the US was a stable power we would have gotten rid of the dictator for good after the first term. And most definitely after trying to usurp an entire election. Or worst case after he issued pardons to all people involved in any way to usurp the election, including many hardened criminals. After all these things, even if we get control of the US government and place it into stable, hands, it will take a generation to rebuild the broken trust.

But I don't think that the people downvoting you are necessarily other US citizens. It feels like HN is very good at eliminating bots, but in these sorts of discussions lots of sleeper agent bots come out to try to shift discussion. Every bit of our social media is full of it and I think that the downvotes your comment probably come from that.

> I don't think that the people downvoting you are necessarily other US citizens. ....... sleeper agent bots come out to try to shift discussion

Interesting point. I (very likely) stand corrected.

> And the US is at a high level of strength, not weakness. Its large corporations hold sway over the globe in a manner the likes of which has never been seen before in modern history. Its military has force projection to nearly every point on the globe, with hundreds of global military bases. Its national wealth is at an all-time high. Its stock markets are at all-time highs. Its median income is at an all-time high. Its median dispoable income is at an all-time high. Its housing wealth is at an all-time high

This is in part because other countries allow American countries to come in and take over markets.

In a war type scenario between US and Europe, what do you think will happen to those large corporations 'sway'? Their assets will be confiscated, their systems cut off or repurposed. It will immediately end any sway those corporations had

and to op's point about

> Its military has force projection to nearly every point on the globe, with hundreds of global military bases

How are the hosts to all those bases going to react when suddenly the guest acts belligerent? When the ally drops down to an occupier, that force projection suddenly starts looking like occupation, which becomes a lot more expensive to maintain.

And the expense has worked until now because everyone else has wanted our currency so what's a bit more currency printing, but when we kick our own global reserve currency status because we fucked all of our allies, well now that "force projections becomes a lot more expensive" actually becomes expensive^squared.

This is absolutely idiotic for anyone who indulges in the privileges of empire.

> The US is more stable than the powers of Europe (which have constant political upheavals, snap elections that completely remake the political landscape, etc)

How many European powers have had their incumbent head of state violently attempt to hold onto power after losing an election after January 6th, 2021?

A stable country would do what South Korea or Brazil did: imprison the criminal.

Instead, in the US, we have our supposed captains of industry wielding chain saws on stage to publicly support the wannabe tyrant, and donating billions behind the scenes to privately support the wannabe tyrant.

> You're confusing Trump's mouth with how the US political system actually functions.

I'm not confusing anything, right now Trump's mouth IS the political system in the US. Republicans control every aspect of the government completely, all the way through to the checks of the US Supreme Court.

No Republican has enough backbone to stand up to Trump, and if they do gain a backbone to stand up to Trump at all, like MTG, they exit politics quickly. Thomas Massie is the closest to somebody who is standing up to Trump. If Republicans in the Senate were willing to stay in office yet defect from the party, that would be enough to stand up to Trump, but even that's not happening.

Right now, the US is in a position not unlike Imperial Japan, right before they launched an attack on the US, forcing the US into WW2. High Command wants somebody to stand up and stop the obviously bad action, but nobody is willing to make the short-term sacrifice for the long-term good.

> The US is more stable than the powers of Europe (which have constant political upheavals, snap elections that completely remake the political landscape, etc)

Can you name 26 countries with the same level of unity and cooperation with the US as what exists between the 27 members of the EU (and larger economic zone)?

The US is but one country. If you zoom into states, you’d see a lot more bickering and division - y’all just sent your military against your own people just now…

Sorry, Trump insisting on annexing Greenland is not a "change in strategic goals", it's a toddler's petulant obsession. The US already had carte blanche from Denmark to do pretty much whatever it wanted in Greenland.

Besides Trump, I doubt there's another official in the WH who wants this. They are all just humoring the demented old man.

Its baffling that you think the collapse of the USD would have no negative ramifications on the rest of the world...

It will suck, and then it will get better.

Yes but you have a) no idea how bad the suck will be b) no idea how long the suck will last and c) what the "better" will look like.

I am not advocating that the status quo should go on, I am just saying that the repercussions will be vast and long lasting, likely resulting in a world war, and whatever follows after that(if anything).

The negative ramifications seem to be better than being invaded by the US or having regional entities invaded by the US, and the ensuing instability as a result.

If its going to be like this the rest of the world might as well cut its losses

You seem to have a very limited view of the world if you think the US doesn't have fans of totalitarian rule and that the "rest of the world" is exclusively against US global strategy. I am going to guess that you actually have no idea what the negative ramifications of the collapse of a currency that underpins the foundations of our world are, because it is something that is near impossible to predict.

I agree that at some point, governments and people will need to step up and fight back, but the idea that the US will somehow fall in a vacuum and everyone else will live happily ever after is laughable.

  the US will somehow fall in a vacuum and everyone else will live happily ever after is laughable.

If enough countries collectively decide to not export to the US, it's game over. See Cuba as an example.

Not everything is a movie with a final battle. Alternatives are found and adopted all the time without violent strife.

A reminder the insatiable appetite of the American consumer is a big part of what props up a lot of other economies.

Every consumer is insatiable. Americans have (had?) powerful money that allows them to push the limit.

> Its baffling that you think the collapse of the USD would have no negative ramifications on the rest of the world.

Empires rise and fall, pax Americana was not the world's first hegemony. The end of the British Empire is within living memory - while they sowed seeds of instability in a handful of former colonies that still flare up today, the rest of the world is fine. Britain, on the other hand, has had to enter a "managed decline", and is a much smaller player in world politics than it was a century ago.

If you think the US is going to decline slowly, fade into history and not try to go out with a bang, I guess that is certainly one world view!

Is that “bang” Mutually Assured Destruction?

What do you think the US is going to do for that bang? How could a bang ever bring the wealth and peace that its prior friendship with allies brought?

The US doesn't have the cards to play, because the current US Government doesn't even understand where the wealth has come from. That US Government has risen to power by tricking the public into thinking that the very things that make the US wealthy and powerful are actually a scam making them poorer.

The current US Government has already broken the trust that makes the US strong. The repercussions will take years to become fully visible, and without immediate course correction those future repercussions will get far far worse.

> What do you think the US is going to do for that bang?

Literally a bang.

Or many bangs. The largest military in human history going YOLO won’t be a pretty sight. (The only way it sucks more in America than it does abroad is if we go civil war. But even then, it’s almost certain to go global.)

> How could a bang ever bring the wealth and peace that its prior friendship with allies brought?

It won't.

The world wasn't globalized then. It's quite literally, an entire new world today. The collapse of the US will touch every corner of the world.

> The world wasn't globalized then

This may be recency bias. The current age just has more immediate, global communications. "The sun never sets on the British empire" had a literal meaning based on how globalized it was then. They even laid intercontinental undersea cables.

IT will be painful, but we (the rest of the world) will weather the storm, and come out to a brighter and cleaner world. The greatest con the US pulled was to scare the rest of the world of being bullied by powerful fascist nations whilst becoming the most powerful fascist bully.

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 increasing domestic demand? Historically, demand deficiency is much harder to restore.

Single most accurate and astute comment on the entire page. Not everyone can be a net exporter, of course…

Think one step further. When a different currency becomes the reserve currency, the currency rises in value, the holders become far wealthier, get their imports for cheaper, and suddenly they can even subsidize their local industries that rely on exports to the point that it's a smooth transition to more of a consumer economy.

> subsidize their local industries that rely on exports to the point that it's a smooth transition to more of a consumer economy.

There's an implication here that the country *wants* to become a consumer economy, and not remain an export economy.

Furthermore, it relies on the leadership wanting to wind down that production, and not use that subsidy to further bolster their industrial capacity & crush global prices, in an attempt to wash out the others & only have their country be the sole remaining place capable of meeting demand at that subsidized point.

Why would a country want to remain a manufactured-good export economy, rather than having the stronger position of a consumer economy that lives off the wealth of the rest of the world?

Why grind away relentlessly in industries with tiny profit margins, when there are high-margin innovation-driven industries that your economy can advance to?

Why stick with producing clothing, when you can move on to cars? Why stick with cars, when you can move on to chips? Why stay with chips, when you can move on to the next new technology that the entire world wants, but which only your economy can produce because it grew the industry from scratch and everybody is playing catch up?

Dictators love autarky because it gives them complete control of the population. Populations should not love autarky, because it makes them poor and robs them of wealth and opportunity.

> Why would a country want to remain a manufactured-good export economy, rather than having the stronger position of a consumer economy that lives off the wealth of the rest of the world?

1) A consumer economy is not required to extract wealth from other countries.

2) A consumer economy is metastable by design:

(2a) It inherently requires the buy-in of other nations to want to export to you in the first place, which is not guaranteed.

(2b) The wealth of the consumer economy is primarily derived from salesmanship and not the product itself, which is also metastable.

3) Knowledge work is not barred to an export economy, and can similarly be performed there without having to become a consumer economy.

> Why grind away relentlessly in industries with tiny profit margins, when there are high-margin innovation-driven industries that your economy can advance to?

(Previous point (3) similarly applies here)

> Why stick with producing clothing, when you can move on to cars? Why stick with cars, when you can move on to chips? Why stay with chips, when you can move on to the next new technology that the entire world wants, but which only your economy can produce because it grew the industry from scratch and everybody is playing catch up?

1) None of these decisions are mutually exclusive. Why throw away the $10 you picked up just because you saw $100?

2) Establishment of a new industry is not assured. Failure can still occur, even when billions are thrown. (see Abu Dhabi & GlobalFoundries semiconductor fab venture)

2b) Not very new industrial move needs to be made. Tech leapfrogging can occur at a later date.

3) The demand for those """lower end""" products do not evaporate. Unless a sensible smartphone-like revolution comes for clothing / cars (i.e. The unification of multiple former products under a new product), the industry's products & demand will rarely change. The tastes will shift, but the fundamentals of the product & the industry will remain.

4-IMPORTANT) Margins are not obligated to trend towards zero, and can in fact increase as more people make the same mental conclusions as described and abandon their own industries, eventually leading to an oligopoly / monopoly scenario that is harder to retake back.

> Dictators love autarky because it gives them complete control of the population. Populations should not love autarky, because it makes them poor and robs them of wealth and opportunity.

Wealth does not inherently manifest from (the ether / nothing), and neither does opportunity. Even in the EU, wealth is derived from the decisions of the State to create / retain wealth.

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 US. There may be some losers who do not negotiate trade deals or can't find new markets, but it's unlikely. The supposed US trade war on China has resulted in their GDP growing by a massive 5% last year. Canada, losing its exports to the US, negotiates deals with other countries.

The pain for other countries is more organizational than anything economic. The US will face massive economic disaster in the form of devalued dollars and the need to close the government deficit after decades of being addicted to massive reserve-currency-enabled deficit spending. 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.

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. Europe may have a harder time signaling to Europeans that they are far wealthier, but make imports cheaper for Europeans, and people who find that they suddenly have a lot more left in their bank account at the end of the month usually find ways to spend at least part of it.

>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.

> the country would become incredibly attractive for manufacturing exports

First, the US will not be attractive in any way for investment because it is run by a madman that has ridiculous tariff policies that make starting manufacturing supply chains nearly impossible.

Second, even if the US could transition its economy back to manufacturing, that's a massive slide down the value chain to far less profitable industries than our current tech, biotech, and service driven economies. The idea as presented is a serious downgrade in quality of life compared to today.

> 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.

China wants to transition its economy up the value chain to the high tech industry that the US currently has. It has the educational system and the brain power, and the biggest impediment, brain drain to the US, has now been shut off.

If climbing the value chain, out of manufacturing, requires China to shut down factories or open up currency somehow, they are far more likely to do that than to abandon their ambition of economic growth.

> If, for example, China decides that it finally wants a consumer economy

This is a fantasy that the CCP leadership will not entertain, because it would mean losing their control as the (export/industrial) king. Their national security descends from having that crown firmly in their hands & making everyone else reliant on their industries, and will do as much as they can to make sure it stays that way.

A strong currency runs counter to what the CCP leadership wants, having seen how it has hollowed out the US' industrial capacity (as a result of strong currency demand leading to comparatively higher labor costs).

The CCP aspires to climb the value chain up to where the US is, which means shifting away from manufacturing to the high profit margin tech, biotech, and other science related industries.

The manufacturing stage is just a stepping stone to getting to where the US already is.

The end goal of the CCP is not to be a middling power, with middling wealth. It's to be the greatest power. That some in the US want to go down the value chain and take China's manufacturing spot just as China zooms ahead of the US, is, well... It would be comical if it weren't so sad.

> The CCP aspires to climb the value chain up to where the US is, which means shifting away from manufacturing to the high profit margin tech, biotech, and other science related industries.

None of that requires a strong currency, only a strong industry.

That's what the CCP has done with their own currency, by deliberately weakening it & funneling the strength into drowning the global market with their industry's products. A strong currency runs counter to that by making their products more expensive as a result.

Had the RMB continued its original trajectory (2003-2015), it would've wound up at approximately 1EUR ~= 5RMB. Instead, the CCP made the decision to weaken the RMB to maintain industrial capability, and further expand into technological ventures without abandoning the other industries they've captured before.

> That some in the US want to go down the value chain and take China's manufacturing spot just as China zooms ahead of the US, is, well... It would be comical if it weren't so sad.

1) China is able to "zoom ahead" because they have a strong industry within their own borders, buffered from the political decisions of other countries.

2) The value of the lower parts of the chain is not obligated to be lower than the upper parts of the chain.

https://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/news/its-okay-to-move-down...

> balance all the desired export surpluses of the EU, China, Japan, etc together without the US as the demand sink

in 2022 China, Russia exported around 630 billion USD, US imported around 950 billion USD. maybe the world will not end if these three just go and play in a separate sandbox;)

> it's going to be a painful adjustment.

even if demand falls a bit it's not the end of the world if it becomes more sustainable afterwards (less overproduction, consumer waste, gassing the environment)

Japan is the model of low interest rate debt and the US is not close to how low Japan was able to go, with a currency (Yen) vastly less potent than the global reserve currency.

Most of the US borrowing is domestic, very little of it is now foreign. No foreign entity can afford to absorb $2 trillion of new paper every year. That's equal to the total holdings of China + Japan. Going forward you might as well regard all US Govt borrowing as domestic, as that will essentially be the case given the scale. The UK holds $885b of treasuries, what are they going to buy annually that will make a difference at this point?

Every nation has a limitless ability to borrow internally via currency debasement, with obvious consequences. That USD debasement is why gold has gone up 10x in 20 years when priced in dollars. It's why healthcare and housing is so expensive - when priced in dollars. Cash pushed into gold in 2005, $100k, would now buy you a million dollar house. It's the dollar of course that has been hammered (among other currencies, the Euro has not done well against gold either).

The US won't stop being able to debase its currency and buy its own debt. What the US is doing is eating its hand. If it continues to get worse, it moves on to eating its arm, and so on (the US is de facto consuming its national wealth through stealth confiscation via currency destruction, rather than paying the bills with taxation directly).

>what are they going to buy annually that will make a difference at this point

Mechanically, "they" being sovereign banks serve as price-insensitive marginal buyers that close treasury auctions regardless of price because they buy treasury for storage/liquidity. VS domestic buyers (hedgefund insurance), who are price sensitive = raise rates to attract discriminate buyers who buy for yield/valuation = worse debt servicing = faster debasing. Foreign sovereign buyers still play governor role in making sure domestic buyers get a shit none-market deal, i.e. US gov gets a good deal which moderates velocity of debasing. Of course past certain level of debt brrrting, the ability for sovereign buyers to absorb is compromised, in which case it makes sense for US to fuck foreign buyers over and inflate away as much debt as possible while still reserve currency - US can inflate/soft default faster than world can unwind. And TBH US will probably be "fine" as long as US can still gunboat diplomacy. If can't be banker anymore, be the mob boss.

There will always be a market if the interest rates are high enough. But wanting to lower interest rates and introducing political instability seems like a bad combo.

A sensible response, indeed. Investing is about finding the right balance of risk vs reward. When a country becomes less reliable, it becomes a less attractive investment, until the interest they pay rises enough to compensate for the additional risk.

Edit: Yes, I am being sarcastic.

When facing war you have more important things to think about, including confiscation and freezing of assets

Both can be true. Start with soft preemptive planning for both reasons.

> $100 million

Is that a lot? Seems relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but perhaps a warning of larger moves to come.

It’s the symbolism more than direct financial impact. You get 100 moves like this and it starts to become real money.

It's not a symbolic move by the pension fund. It's all of the fund's US treasuries.

100 moves of this size (~$10B) would make up 0.1% of foreign-held US treasuries (~$8.5T).

I'd say each move like this increases the likelihood of the next one happening, and typically, nobody wants to be the last one holding the bag.

And the big European nations own ~ 23% of US debt. This is not a one-sided contest. Oddly, it does feel like trump is what europe needed to wake up from its slumber. With new AI / startup funding, the rebuild of their military, and opening up to china this could be the making of the EU into a true superpower. About time.

Edit: percentage down from 30% clarify debt

It’s hard to put an exact number but it’s on the order of $500-1000 billion daily.

So a drop in the bucket, but we’ll have to see if it’s a domino.

It's not a lot. Multiple countries could offload hundreds of billions and the U.S. Treasury would buy them up immediately (and probably ask the Federal Reserve for some help the next day)

I can't find the program name at the moment, but the Treasury plans for situations like this regularly.

> the Treasury plans for situations like this regularly.

For attacking allies?

I know that’s not what you meant but we must be pushing up against scenarios that haven’t been considered possible.

We've certainly planned for single allies going unhinged - but what we didn't plan for was us going unhinged and causing all our allies to take retaliatory actions. If France, Denmark, Germany, Britain - any one of them was swept up in nationalistic fervor and turned their back on our multi-lateral alliances we could easily weather that storm... when it's us though, that threatens the USD's acceptance as the defacto trading currency especially at a time when BRICS is semi-coherent and we're weathering a recent inflationary burst. This is like a perfect storm.

Definitely, I think there'd be a crisis if our biggest holders like the UK and Japan sold off their treasury securities but some "small" selloffs aren't outside the realm of possibilities. Trillions in selloffs though, that might get interesting.

The FED can print as much money as it wants. Defaulting this way on US debt won't make the US a more desirable debtor nation.

I think you are missing the point. The point is it would materialize as inflation instead of debt default. Not that there is no downside risk.

Inflation is a kind of default, I'm not missing the point.

The value of the dollar is based on the promise of 2% inflation of a basket of goods. Breaking that promise is default.

Well... no. Default is when you can't pay back what you promised. Not keeping inflation under a certain target.

Unless words just don't mean anything anymore. In which case, yes. Which could also mean no.

In case you are interested in more than definitions of words: Bond investors do not care if you default by giving them a haircut, doing things like forcefully extending the term to 100 years or lowering the currency value by printing money. In either case they will adjust their future risk premium of US govt. bonds and of course price in future inflation.

One might be able to hide the money printing for a while, though, while the haircut is explicit.

So if the Treasury is the only entity buying treasuries, what is the USD worth at your local grocery store?

how about at the companies that supply that grocery store?

and so on up the chain.

About $1T is traded daily so it's really more a symbolic move.

Two people buying and selling the same dollar a trillion time would hit that trade volume in a day. There's also a huge difference between short term and long term bonds.

So we need a better metric to evaluate this against. If we look at recent auctions, they typically move around 35-40 billion in 10 year notes and about 25-30 billion in 30 year notes. With the rest being short term.

In 2025, the Treasury issued $30 trillion total over 400 auctions.

So yes, $100MM is not a lot, but it's still three or so auctions worth of bonds. There's also the downstream impacts of this, as the Netherlands is likely no longer buying t-bonds in any form. And this is just one country.

Nope but its about the sentiment

https://ticdata.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-cent...

China has been divesting for the last nine months, and continues to do so.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-18/foreign-h... | https://archive.today/4pfum

It's a pension fund of/for teachers in Denmark. That amount in U.S. Treasuries sounds like an expected size to me.

Whilst this might be symbolic, money managers don’t tend to do symbolism. Surely it’s more likely that they fear what’s to come: an economic war against the dollar as pushback for the threats from Trump. So selling before the price tanks makes good sense.

The other thread going on this topic says that Europe could sell about $10 trillion. That’s a lot, but also, it’s only a bit over 10 days trading at normal volumes (according to the numbers being discussed in this thread).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692052

The normal trading volume isn't really the key. Rather, it's how elastic the price is.

Suppose these guys sell 10% of the daily trading volume. How do the traders in the market react? One possibility: Buy at current prices. Another: Speculate that there'll be more sales and the price will drop by a couple of per cent in the coming days/weeks, and delay their buying in order to buy the dip.

I'm sure the Americans have laid plans for how to avoid a major Oops.

> How do the traders in the market react?

Buy. Because the Fed is about to monetize the debt.

Maybe I misunderstand, but that sounds as if you're saying that Treasuries have low risk and middling yield. Is that what you mean? (Half the G20 countries currently have <4% yield on ten-year bonds, the other half more.)

For reference, 25-30% of US treasuries are foreign owned. It's still a lot but I think people over-estimate how much of US debt is foreign owned.

Sure, but if the majority of that foreign owned debt is sold off, it’s very likely there would be a run and everyone would try to sell in a panic.

It would have a massive negative impact, and there are reason why these countries dont do this (their own interests), but that's all besides the point. The US hold most of it's debt, which is not something everyone realizes.

It’s about the right sizing for a pension fund invest. Most pension fund transactions I see are in roughly that range 50 to 200ish

Rounding error on a global scale.

What happens when USD stops becoming the the reserve currency for the world? And who takes its place?

That would never happen until the US Navy ceases to be effective globally.

You mean like how the Houthi’s unilaterally decided to shut down Red Sea shipping and the US Navy is still powerless to restore it?

That's regional politics. Nothing to do with the superiority of one navy over another

What? The Houthis shutting down a major global shipping route and the US openly giving up on restoring it is not "regional politics."

The dollar being the reserve currency is international finance. Nothing to do with the superiority of one navy over another.

Navies appear to be obsolete (edit: I'll exempt ballistic missile subs from this statement, though.) You don't even need a navy of your own to sink another country's navy these days.

When $100M in armaments can take out a $10000M carrier, it's time to rethink things.

What is the theory of how the US Navy keeps the dollar the reserve currency, when the US has made itself a pariah state? What mechanism? Would the US Navy be doing piracy and demand protection money in dollars? Piracy payoffs would be a far far lower demand for dollars than there currently is and, and also greatly reduce all other trade with the US, further reducing demand for US dollars.

Really curious what your reasoning is here.

I think it works as a statement right up until you start an actual war, then the threat is gone. No point worrying US will invade if you don't support it economically, if it already invaded

I saw an interesting article about plumbing problems on one of our aircraft carriers.

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/17/nx-s1-5680167/major-plumbing-...

The argument made like that is an original argument bent backwards. The argument was that the US Navy guaranteed open shipping lanes and kept Pax Americana. Now we get closed shipping lanes and Bellum Americanum.

If the US pisses enough countries off with this Greenland stuff that they shut down US bases around the world, that substantially curtails the US Navy's ability to be effective globally.

> That would never happen until the US Navy ceases to be effective globally.

US Navy would have have no parking spots left in Europe if they try to annex Greenland.

The US starts more wars until its eventual complete collapse. See The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. We're operating out of a playbook for imperial destruction word for word.

"History buffs" that literally only know the Roman Empire and Hitler should probably try expand their purview.

I think Qing dynasty China might be a better fit.

Qing suffered a century of unequal treaties before they fell, they were the bullied and not the bully. (They were also medieval and isolationist which further hurts the comparison IMO).

France and most of the European imperialists before the first world war.

That’s the manly history that appeals to men! Men of masculinity.

What are some better parallels? Seriously, no snark, please throw out some suggestions for reading. I can't think of any other country that has done this to itself.

Napoleon, maybe?

The dollar sucks but everything else is worse.

Hey, it's nice that you came in signed up to HN to cheer for the USD. I think it's going to be needed to change the overall sentiment.

Yep, nothing signals stability and genuine sentiment like a bunch of brand new accounts swooping in and touting the strength of the dollar.

HN seems totally fine with this behaviour too, also super reassuring.

HN trusts the community by giving us green text for the new accounts.

I would say the same on my old accounts too. I rotate accounts annually (it is january). I'm not anyone note worthy or famous, this account and my others are just as generic as any other HN commoner.

The USD dollar sank -10% this last year versus the euro.

The Euro sank -10% this last year versus the Zambian Kwacha

Zambia doesn't actually matter though.

Yet it's a stronger performing currency

All you're saying is "it went up more". Still irrelevant impact in the world.

My guess would be EUR takes its place, gold will also be used more. I guess what happens is USD gets much weaker and US buying power goes down. Maybe destroying the USD will eventually cause the boost to domestic manufacturing that Trump wanted, since foreign goods will be out of reach. Cut down the forest to kill a squirrel. I'm no expert though

There will never be a boost to domestic manufacturing without some kind of investment. The booms of the 1950's and 1960's were a result of massive government spending in the 1930's and 1940's building a bunch of capacity and researching novel manufacturing techniques and building new tools. If we don't have the morale for that we will simply stop having as many things.

It also included a bunch of women joining the workforce, an enormous baby-boom and brown people acquiring the freedom and prosperity necessary to become consumers. Demographics are always the fundamental driver of economic movements.

Historically, gold’s day in the sun is always juuust around the corner, right after the disastrous collapse that never quite arrives.

Now that we really do have a destructive realignment underway, maybe gold will actually be useful again. I doubt it, but I’m no currency expert.

It seems to be in demand. It is getting really expensive!

Domestic manufacturing isn’t coming back without a thoughtful investment program. A lot of older people still think of China like in the 1980s where it was mostly low-wage, low-quality products but that’s nothing like true now and they have entire clusters of world-class product pipelines with long supply chains which would take a long time to bring back in stages.

The other problem seems even bigger: we don’t have many high-skill workers available, but our wages are high enough that anyone bringing manufacturing back is going to try to automate it as much as possible. That seems like a real bind for the Republicans’ isolationist strategy: exports will be down due to a trade war and a difficult price/value ratio in the areas other countries currently dominate, and if we’re heading into a more automated economy we’re going to have a growing number of people who won’t be able to afford to buy much. This seems like a vicious self-inflicted cycle if it gets rolling.

We finally realise there is no such thing as a “reserve currency” in the floating exchange rate era and that the concept is a long dead hangover from fixed exchange rates.

And that’s definitely going to upset the gold bugs.

(In reality lots of things are held in reserve)

USD is a routing currency that is used because it is cheaper than the mesh alternative. When it stops being cheaper whoever is then cheapest will get the routing transactions.

The share of the USD as a reserve currency has already been slowly declining over the last decade, although it is all but dramatic. The reduction is not in favour of another particular currency. Instead, the proportion of minor currencies is increasing. Here is a diagram for the years 2016 to 2023: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/232562/umfrag...

Look up something called "dedollarization," it's been talked about in academic circles for quite some time and now more mainstream institutions are discussing it more too.

Yes, in my undergrad government policy classes twenty years ago, we were talking about a "basket of currencies" that would replace the USD as the global reserve.

IMF has this, intra-countries, with their SDR ("Special Drawing Rights"). China was added in the 2010s, and USD has slowly been losing its percentage of the SDR's overall-makeup.

[•] <https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_drawing_rights>

SDR's are a type of Keynes' "Bancor" concept, but only transactable between countries. Citizens may resort to the commoner's bancor, e.g. bitcoin (but also gold, silver &c).

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

I doubt it would be replaced by a single global reserve currency. More likely there would be a handful of currencies that perform a similar role (USD, EUR, CNY, maybe some others) and which you primarily use depends on whose sphere of influence you are in.

Probably some type of balanced trade. Holding each trade partners currency and balancing it at times. Or even between multiple holders and currency pairs.

If there is need you can now build very complicated systems as everything is digital anyway.

Maybe stable coins would be finally useful. Each currency has own stable coin and then they are automatically traded in massive market... /s

The petrodollar (a product of Kissinger) has been in collapse since Saudi Arabia began divesting from it.

We've been printing pretend money for quite some time, and supressing the value of precious metals (which is why you're now seeing silver bullion sell for $100+ an ounce). Copper is also selling out now.

These precious metals are extremely valuable because they're used to manufacture all of the technology consumers and nation states rely on daily. We're going to see a regression towards mercantilism and commodity hoarding. Most likely fiat will be abandoned in favor of crypto as we enter a new era of hyperinflation.

Buckle up - 2026 is going to be a wild ride.

Gotta love HN - getting downvoted with no explanation, but most likely because the truth is uncomfortable and people would rather press the downvote button than face facts.

I think you should rather assume that when you mention crypto taking over fiat, it's just too outlandish to even comment.

Except governments around the world have been talking about a digital dollar / digital currencies for years now. I'm not sure exactly what is so outlandish about it. The fiat system is collapsing, and the signs are quite plain to see. Can't print fake money forever...

Usually, what they mean is fiat tokens, minted much like paper currency.

There's a large difference between fiat currency and what you're calling fiat tokens. One is extremely difficult to trace - the other is extremely easy and allows the nation states that are "minting" them to track every transaction being made with them.

They are nothing like paper currency outside of being another abstraction of actual value and being issued / controlled by the banking cartel.

How has the US been suppressing global metal prices?

I didn't say the US has been suppressing them. The international banking cartel along with the US Federal Reserve have, in order to prop up the value of federal reserve notes.

Okay, how did those actors do it then?

https://www.kitco.com/opinion/2026-01-09/silver-price-suppre...

https://auronum.co.uk/from-fix-to-fraud-silver-price-manipul...

https://www.investing.com/analysis/silver-physical-demand-ki...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02649...

The USD has already been in decline as a reserve currency. The only thing that is happening is the decline is accelerating.

It is not necessarily a question of "takes its place", but more about being more serious about diversification. Or to paraphrase the old IBM saying "nobody got fired for buying USD" is no longer the case.

In terms of options you have JPY, EUR and CNY as the big-three and maybe tag AUD on top.

Why AUD and not SGD?

I guess AUD has higher GDP (but much lower GDP per capita and worse forex rate to the us dollar)

> Why AUD and not SGD?

Fair question. And in some circles people would substitute AUD for CHF, and SGD is essentially in the same position as CHF (small, stable, well-connected country).

But AUD mostly because Australia is commodity-rich and so AUD has a naturally high exposure to international trade especially in Asia-Pacific region. Its a bit like CAD but the problem with CAD is its neighbour. ;)

Bitcoins, probably

To the rest of the world - Nothing. Trade works just fine without a reserve currency.

For the USA - massive inflation. All of those dollars are coming back home, which will weaken the dollar.

Plus, there's the second-order effects from a president taking control of the fed by trumping up charges on its members. So high inflation + low/zero/negative interest rates.

>And who takes its place?

Anybody who can (EU, Yuan) does not want to. Primairly because as export based economies, they want a weak currency in relation to a strong reserve (dollar) so they can make their goods more competitive, and also because surplus naturally appreciates a currency without central bank intervention via buying US treasuries to offset the appreciation. And for China, they're not going to accept the liberalized capital controls neede for it either.

So the answer is if the US dollars fail it would be global economic collapse and then chaos, but contrary to the rhetoric the rest of the world's economic systems are too uniquely vested in the USD to see it fail. As for gold, well we come to the same problem as noted above but worse, and in that situation the US actually holds the highest gold reserves so they still benefit the most out of it.

I wonder if there needs to be a single reserve currency any more.

In the past it made things easier for everybody to use the same currency, but is that still the case with modern electronic transactions?

Maybe it splinters into Euro, BRICS, and USD?

It's easier if contracts run on the same currency I think, your suppliers price in USD, you sell your products in USD, it's easier for a whole supply chain that way. I can imagine that fracturing or switching to Euro for things like manufacturing and semiconductors.

I personally have dumped every single US security I held in the last 2 years, US bonds have been the latest to go in the last week.

Mind you I'm a small investor (my portfolio is 100k-ish euros). I'm still exposed to US securities through ETFs though, as I have 3 different ones holding US companies, but that I ain't gonna sell them.

But for new capital I may as well provide it to others.

I'm not dumping US, but since Trump got back into power, all new investment goes into ex-US funds to help balance what was previously a portfolio over-reliant on US stocks. I'm based in Canada.

Same. Changing out VXC for VIU.

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 Bretton Woods was implemented (50:1, 1930s-1960s). It's even scarier to see the rapid rate we are approaching to-when USD was gold-backed (22:1), considering that less than two years ago it was over 100:1 .

----

What else is a fiat-based country supposed to do after creating all these unfunded pensions/liabilities ?— ¡¿..then to inflate away the guaranteed difference..?!

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.

So much American exceptionalism is just the Dollar exceptionalism.

Without the G7 piling up dollars, there is no American exceptionalism.

At some point the US will lose the Dollar, and it will turn out that US productivity is just like everyone else's.

What do you mean? All the best companies the world have seen recently is in US though. Google, Apple, Nvidia to name a few. What am I missing in your argument?

They're implying that the US is exceptional due to its access to cheap credit, not due to some inherent superiority. Your comment listing off successful american companies seems to agree with him if anything. Maybe you misread the comment and got a little defensive?

Ahh. Makes sense. I did get defensive. Bit not sure why. I don't even live in US.

Dollar is the exception because the US is the exception (partially from luck, partially from its inherited geographical advantage), not the other way around.

The US has a lot of other things going for it. Rule of law, enterprise, most of the biggest companies in tech, entertainment and the like.

> Rule of law

Are you being sarcastic?

No but I was thinking more of commercial law. I was quite impressed when I had money in ftx.com that the US got the money back and put SBF in jail promptly even though ftx.com wasn't a US company. I'm not sure any other countries would have done that. That sort of stuff matters to large investors.

That was then, as in it started several years ago.

You do know similar people to SBF have been pardoned by Tump, right? Not related to the money they gave him and his family, of course..

Keep in mind that there are many such 10 to 100 billion funds and they can move very fast if they have to. If the feeling is that the value of the USD is going to be lower in the near future they will divest and before you know it the threat becomes reality simply because it is predicated on a belief. Kill the belief and the actions will follow automatically. This could be the first and it could be the only or it could be the first of many.

Feels like the right direction, pull all European money from the US, hope that financial and economical consequences convince US citizens to deal with their president as he deserves. It will decrease profits short term but certainly will have less negative impact than letting that guy in power.

Talk about a pipe dream. This is a far less significant penalty than what has been applied to Russia and absolutely nothing has happened to Putin.

Europe could apply all the same sanctions to the US that it has applied to Russia and Trump would still serve out his full term.

There are differences though. First the US is still a democracy, so unhappy voters matter (and there are the midterms which is an opportunity to express unhappiness). Second the ties between Europe and US are greater than they were between Europe and Russia, so probably this could have more impact.

This sundering of US-European relationship feels like watching a trainwreck in slowmotion. It's all so stupid and avoidable. Is there really nothing that can be done?

Democracy. The people have spoken. Americans wanted this.

Can people quit with this stupid argument? A thin majority of Americans voted for this during the election. If you follow the polls, the vast majority of American currently don't want this. Just stop with this "dumb Americans" dur dur nonsense. Those of us who have our heads screwed on straight are so sick of being blamed for this. The same thing could happen at any time in any country.

This is not true. First of all, this is the SECOND time this clown is elected.

Secondly, 77,302,580 americans voted for trump. That is one in three.

I am sorry you get blamed for this, I know you are not to blame. But you have to see how it looks from the outside, given the incredible effects it has had (most importantly, making millions lose faith in the world. And who knows what more to come.)

To add to this, the thing that really worries me is not that Trump is doing this, but the fact every single US has had the capacity to do this (Trump is proof of it), and the only thing holding back the US from self-immolation and destroying all their partnerships was decorum and being nice, but there were no actual mechanisms, laws, or tools to prevent POTUS from self-appointing himself as King of America, which is extremely worrying for what many people regarded as an advanced democracy.

I understand, but it's also a bit rich coming from the US.

When the US applies country level sanctions or goes to war in places like Gaza, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Cuba, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Iran - I don't see much thought given to it really not being the peoples fault.

> The same thing could happen at any time in any country.

Exactly.

The Supreme Court can rule Trump’s ability to unilaterally impose tariffs illegal (and they’ll be ruling one way or the other very very soon).

Are there mechanisms in place that will prevent them from delaying this decision until, say, 2029?

Not really. They can say "we shouldn't have taken this"[0], they can decide the case in a way that doesn't really offer any precedent (eg: these are the wrong plaintiffs to have brought the case), or they can remand it back to a lower court for more info. Prediction markets seem to think there's a 70% chance they'll strike down the tariffs though.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissed_as_improvidently_gra...

Of course there is. Less than 500 Americans can stop your nightmare tomorrow morning. If they just do their jobs.

For context foreign total holdings are around 9T and domestic around 30T. Uk and japan are the largest foreign holders at around 1.7T between them. This is a 100M divestment.

Depending upon how you cut it the Cayman Islands are probably the largest at around 1.8T.

But that's just American hedge funds playing in an unregulated country so you could call that domestic as well

The US keeps voting to raise its debt cieling. Theres not end in sight to endless taxation by both parties.

Nobody is reducing spending and delivery continues to go down.

Congress passed a tax cut last year for the wealthiest as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill (“OBBB”) that increases the debt by $1T-$4T over ten years. What taxation by both parties?

The US pays $800B/year to service debt. It pays $800B-$1T/year for the military. What would you like cut that is discretionary? There appears to be no appetite to raise taxes on the wealthy, pay down debt, and reduce military spending. So US credit card go brrr. We’ll hit a debt spiral eventually.

https://usafacts.org/government-spending/

The deficit reliably starts to come down whenever a Democrat leadership is in place. It then jumps back up under the Republicans.

Well, the unsophisticated and low education keep voting for Republicans, so what do? If you’re an individual, if you can, the best you can do is be prepared to get out and not have exposure to the US financially or from a tax perspective. Otherwise you’re stuck going over the cliff economically with the lemmings due to an uneducated, unsophisticated, vibe driven electorate and a suboptimal political and governance system lacking sufficient checks and balances to prevent this outcome.

Maybe we’re lucky and adults come back into power, but hope alone is not a strategy. No one is coming to save you, prepare accordingly. I have prepared accordingly to decouple from the US entirely as a citizen, if necessary. It’s regrettable and I have no other solution for those inquiring. You can’t control the winds, but you can adjust your sails. My genuine condolences and sympathies if one cannot escape the US either via income, wealth, or some form of visa (lineage, family, work, etc).

(derived from first principles)

so 100% of your savings are in foreign companies that don't have US as a client, plus BTC, and you have dual citizenship already plus don't own your own home?

I own a residence outright in a European country, I have invested in a golden visa fund (renewables) that will provide my family European citizenship after five years, I am financially independent with a minority of my portfolio in US exposure, and I have built a network of folks who will employ me anywhere globally in almost any currency I choose. I hold no crypto while also holding at least a year of expenses in Euros. We have applied for and received permanent residency in Mexico as well (no upkeep cost, the only thing we can't do is vote). Even without a golden visa, Spain will allow you to apply for a digital nomad visa with a three year term from within the country while a tourist (for any employment sourced at least 80% out of the country), and with one two year extension, will then allow you permanent residency after five years (for example; there are many paths to an exit, citations below, and most of the developed world is hungry for skilled labor).

Through the actions above, I feel that I have diversified away from the US sufficiently for my risk appetite. I don't feel I need to renounce my US citizenship currently (due to foreign earned income exclusions), but I am also prepared for that in the future if necessary.

Resources for others I have assembled helping folks exit:

https://relocateme.substack.com/

https://old.reddit.com/r/AmerExit/comments/urwlbr/a_guide_fo...

https://old.reddit.com/user/Shufflebuzz/comments/1iv4dud/shu...

https://www.helpmeleave.us/

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se... (Canadian citizenship by descent)

https://healthcareinfusion.org/ (for healthcare workers interested in Canada)

https://lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/b58914ce-b98d-4330... from https://pancakeonastick.substack.com/ (Digital Nomad Visa Map)

Additional citation:

Work, Invest, Inherit: How Americans Can Actually Move to Europe - https://www.bloomberg.com/explainers/how-americans-can-move-... | https://archive.today/IYsA3 - January 2nd, 2026

It blows my mind that republicans are still seen as the fiscally responsible party.

It's a great indicator of how much of the American public's sentiment on everything is driven by marketing.

Just say "Fiscal responsibility" enough times and it's magically true, and nobody will listen to the educated people pointing at literal receipts because they are "the elites", which is a group that somehow doesn't include the people who's wealth has grown 10x based on explicitly pro-rich person fiscal policy for decades.

It's why they blame democrats for "globalism" as well, despite the fact that the entire country loudly voted for Reagan because of his "lets reduce taxes and magically get rich" narrative.

Or how it's constantly said that "Democrats turned their back on blue collar workers". Said by people voting for the "Unions are inherently bad" party.

Everything about American behavior makes sense when you understand them as especially prone to swallowing marketing and ideology as truth.

In "defense" of Republicans, the MAIN reason for deficit increasing under Republicans is that their administrations often end with some type of economic disaster. Their increased spending is part of the picture, but not as responsible as the impacts from final year recessions.

> Congress passed a tax cut last year for the wealthiest as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill (“OBBB”)

I think you need to call it by its real name.

One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

You can tell how much care and considering went into if from the name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Big_Beautiful_Bill_Act

We don’t need tax cuts, we need higher taxes and less spending on the rich&old. Our welfare system is completely backwards, if you are facing declining fertility and struggling young people - you don’t continue to tax the young to spend on the wealthier generation.

Unfortunately most young people don’t realize they are being hoodwinked and so poll extremely supportive of this scheme.

> we need higher taxes

I'm against putting any more money in 1%-ers pockets. None of your tax money does anything except... make the "rich&old" more rich.

Why should taxes "end"?

The US most likely needs to raise taxes if you want to stop constant loans.

The fund is not concerned about the debt ceiling. The are concerned about the US threatening invasion of its allies.

The debt ceiling is literally not a problem at all, unless the US were to do something as monumentally stupid as to stop allowing its GDP to grow through trade, and devalue the US dollar, in which case everybody flees US treasuries, resulting in collapse of value, causing more people to flee UST, etc....

The debt hawks are very wrong about the fundamentals of currency, but they are less dangerous than the war hawks in the White House to the US's economic future.

It's one thing to do a epically stupid invasion of Iraq on faked intelligence, which ally support. It's another thing entirely to invade allies. It will totally end US dominance in the world.

"The decision is rooted in the poor U.S. government finances, which make us think that we need to make an effort to find an alternative way of conducting our liquidity and risk management," Investment Director Anders Schelde said in a written statement.

"Thus, it is not directly related to the ongoing rift between the U.S. and Europe, but of course that didn't make it more difficult to take the decision," he added.

quotes from the Reuters article

Another case of, 'well they would say that, wouldn't they'

Indeed. There was a progressive slate elected to the board of this pension fund a decade ago, to facilitate oil divestment:

https://bsky.app/profile/runestahl.bsky.social/post/3mcuyopn...

Doing a small amount of CYA as a fiduciary, while causing bond rates to rise, is merely prudent.

The fiscal trajectory of the US absolutely matters for growth, inflation expectations, tax expectations, and government capability.

> endless taxation by both parties.

How do you run a country without taxation? Can you point at an example?

Tariffs, obvs.

Serious answer: deficit spending and let inflation act as the taxation mechanism.

Deficit spending with zero taxation?

The approach is tried and true with a small deficit, but surely you need some decent source of revenue to keep the inflation under control.

This quote from Trump is very revelatory:

“I’m a real estate developer, I look at a corner, I say, ‘I’ve got to get that store for the building that I’m building,’ etc. It’s not that different. I love maps. And I always said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.’”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/us/politics/trump-greenla...

Ah, it is all Mercator's fault

Feels like the exception to the rule that Mercator has no impact. Probably not coincidence it involves the head of state whose arguments that Northern California could water Southern California appears to stem from belief that water flowing from north to south is going downhill all the way :)

Mercator projection aside, Greenland is not tiny. The ice-free area is about as big as California. If you include the icy areas, it's bigger than any U.S. state.

There must be a reason only 50K people live there. It is not a fun place to live. The only purpose that would be achieved by acquiring Greenland is making the US look bigger on a map.

It's a pretty respectable fund and will make other pension funds rethink their strategies.

Let's see how Norway will react

I currently hold some Vanguard ETFs. Any tips on similar broad “world economy” type funds that don't use dollars?

I do VIU in Canadian Dollars to help balance my other "global" ETFs that are over-reliant on US.

VIU: Vanguard FTSE Developed All Cap ex N Amer Idx ETF

VEQT is made of what, 4 underlying ETFS? You could just buy the 3 index funds that don't follow an american index and balance yourself once a year.

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.

Wait until the Norwegians do the same.

Regularly claimed to be the worlds largest stock market investor.

"The fund is the largest single owner in the world’s stock markets, owning almost 1.5 percent of all shares in the world’s listed companies."

https://www.nbim.no/en/about-us/norges-bank-investment-manag...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...

Also Swedish fund Alecta at 8 billion dollars (some reports say USD 7.7 - 8.8)

https://scanx.trade/stock-market-news/global/swedish-pension...

Swedish Alecta has sold off an estimated $8B of US Treasury Bonds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46705256 - January 2026

> "The decision is rooted in the poor U.S. government finances, which make us think that we need to make an effort to find an alternative way of conducting our liquidity and risk management," Investment Director Anders Schelde said in a written statement.

Not a political decision. Still a bad sign for the US, but not really unexpected.

Canada quietly did the same move a few months ago

The Monroe Doctrine stated, under Polk, that the Euros should not interfere with territorial expansionism of the US in the Western hemisphere, even if it came at their expense.

The Roosevelt Corollary stated likewise the US would police any Latin American country's mismanagement.

Yet, all these people are proclaiming a certain person a warmonger instead of completely in line with historical US policy.

From: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/01/21/a...

"The fund’s managers stressed that the decision was not a reaction to America’s territorial threats to Greenland, a Danish territory, but a judgment on Washington’s rampant overspending.

The fund is certainly not ditching American stocks, which make up 60% of its holdings of listed equity. Its private-equity assets tilt similarly heavily to America. Of its high-yield bonds, American issuers account for an even larger share, almost 80%."

and

"Despite the Danish sale, foreigners own more American government bonds than ever."

and

"Even after the s&p 500 slid by 2% on January 20th, following another tariff threat from Donald Trump over Greenland (since withdrawn), American assets continue to attract investors."

AkademikerPension is a quite unusual pension fund, even by Danish standards due to them being quite political in their holdings. This stance is based on surveys made from their members, where many have indicated that placing their money ethically is as important as getting a good return/minimizing risk. In March 2025, they chose to drop their Tesla shares due to union-busting, lack of independence in the board and due to Elon Musk's actions[1].

Last year, AkademikerPension had a return between 3 and 6 percent, which is lower than other Danish pension funds[2].

[1] https://akademikerpension.dk/nyheder/vi-ekskluderer-tesla/ (Danish)

[2] https://akademikerpension.dk/nyheder/afkast-mellem-3-og-6-pr... (Danish)

I keep repeating myself: Back up your iCloud pictures via privacy.apple.com and move your mails away from M365. Worst case these things get blocked/deleted.

I moved my mails from M365 to a 2€ Hetzner cloud server in one day, it's quite easy with docker-compose apps like mailcow. Plus you have encryption and less errors when using thunderbird.

A Swedish pension fund has been doing the same with about 8 billion dollars.

"The reason for the sales is an increased risk linked to the US's more unpredictable policies under Trump's leadership, says asset management manager Pablo Bernengo. Alecta assesses that the risk in US government bonds and the dollar has increased at the same time as the country suffers from large budget deficits and a growing national debt."

https://omni.se/a/0pK1zJ

Side topic: I absolutely hate these large “Allow Ads” screen - you can’t even go back on iPhone Safari , which hides the interface unless the user pulls down the whole page - which you can’t because you can only pull down the Allow Ads page.

Someone should tell the orange guy that we can also stop respecting our obligations. It’s a two way street. It would be a shame if something happened to your ITAR-protected secrets, for example. The US would lose a lot of leverage if they cannot use European military bases. Let’s see how fast Trump goes to bed with Putin…

I don't think that Trump could get into bed with Putin. He could get out of bed with Putin.

Oh, I know. Let’s see how fast he tries to make Putin the good guy on Fox News. What are these rednecks going to do when MAGA goes into bed with Ruzzians! Cold War warriors gonna flip out.

Just impeach the guy already. His mental capabilities aren’t far off Biden’s at the end.

> What are these rednecks going to do when MAGA goes into bed with Ruzzians! Cold War warriors gonna flip out.

I'm assuming you're from outside the US, because literally everyone in the US is well-acquainted with MAGA wearing shirts like "better Russian than a Democrat"

What a retarded country it has become.

> Cold War warriors gonna flip out.

All of these people folded immediately when a fat TV retard won. I’ve seen them literally call for the nationalization of private companies that act contrary to Trumps desires in the last couple of years.

To be fair, that's not too inconsistent. These people aren't neocons, though perhaps they are getting neo-conned.

You are already not respecting your obligations. It's a two way street.

“I want a Nobel prize”. Who asked for help in fucking Iraq up, and got it? Who needed help in Afghanistan, and got it? Oh yeah, we’re not respecting. We’re not respecting the orange bully toddler clown, my fellow dear human being. One day like this, another day the opposite. Just impeach the imbecile so we can all do productive stuff. Where are you going to sell your shit saas when you push us off the cliff? The Ruzzians? Putin, or the guy after him, is going to do you the same way he did Europe. He’s going to lure you, then snap two decades later. But dream on, dreamer.

“You are already not respecting your obligations” is rich from a guy with a Dutch phone number. You have some split personality right there. Make your mind up about where you are.

Many will downvote this, but this is profound validation of the concern that Europe is nearly suicidally trending toward what will be a disastrous relationship with China. Only the US seems to appreciate the risks. Complete insanity, not unlike German denuclearization, etc.

Trump will be a lame duck soon, and it's likely that the next president will be far less extreme. Some sense of American normalcy will likely return relatively soon.

This really should be EU-wide or even globally. We can not afford the TechBros anymore - they act not only like evil but also as parasites.

OK you asked for it Denmark. I'm selling all my legos.

This divestment is so little and with so little aim.

The whole situation is been caused by a single guy and 400 enablers, whereas the US is a 400 million people country.

The correct form of reaction is a punch in the face during a bilateral meeting, Zelensky came close to doing it but unfortunately he resisted his impulse , that's where the epicenter of all newly generated global problems in the last 10 years lies, in that octogenarian brian of his.

The americans that support Trump are many more than 400.

Also, them having elected Trump TWICE, why would they ever be trusted ?

Also when the alternatives are people like.. Hilary Clinton ?

> when the alternatives are people like.. Hilary Clinton ?

Would she have been worse than this?

And the US had a better choice the second time.

No, I do not even think people like DeSantis or Ted Cruz would have been worse. Trump was one of the worst possible candidates the US voters could pick.

And you don’t just have to pick from the red team.

But as you say, was there a worse option? It’s hard to find it.

I think it's safe to say that none of the other potential GOP candidates would have threatened to invade a NATO ally.

Hilary Clinton could have literally entered office and done nothing, and still be better for the American people than the current admin, which is making life more difficult every week for not just Americans, but a good part of the whole world. But hey, the libs were owned, so I guess that's good or something.

>Hilary Clinton could have literally entered office and done nothing

Like Keir Starmer has in the UK. He got elected for saying nothing too. Country didn't get much worse. Maybe we should have 5 years off changes now and then?

Why don't you go up and punch him in the face yourself? Especially if the problem is just one man and 400 enablers hat should be trivial. Just find 1000 people to beat them up.

In reality that one man is backed by half of the US voters, the Republican Party a lot of rich and powerful people, a clear majority of the police forces and an unknown part of the US military.

> backed by half of the US voters

False. People who say this don’t know that a large percentage of Americans don’t care to vote.

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice".

It’s still factually wrong to say 50% supported. Nobody knows that.

38% for Harris, 39% for Trump. Larger number wins. The other 23% who did not vote are null choice and could have made a difference.

This isn’t a political move. It’s a pension fund derisking a small part of their investments by moving them out of a riskier asset.

When I actually look at the data, a lot of US deficit growth came from several specific shocks, with inconsistent years of recovery.

- 9/11

- Iraq War

- Covid

The US did recover a bit deficit-wise in Obama years, but have not reset the fiscal picture from Covid.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSD

What does debt pressure have to do with this? That is an unconnected topic, and not a threat to treasuries.

The plunge around 2001 wasn't caused by 9/11, and was orchestrated a bit before. Since Clinton managed to cut a lot of spending (both due to his governance and global economics) and reduce some tax avoidance schemes, the US budget had a surplus, so the Bush admin implemented a lot of tax cuts. 9/11 and the following wars didn't had any positive impact, but without the Bush tax cuts, the US budget would still have a surplus in 2003 before the Iraq war

It's not like the EU can go to China for the $64 to $94bn in mineral fuels and oils (LNG, crude oil) they import from the U.S. Or the aerospace products and parts $35-46bn they import. Or the $45-$52bn in pharmaceuticals and medicines and advanced biologics (unless they go all in on generics, but this is only part of that sum). The list goes on and on. Germany trying to reboot their nuclear energy infrastructure, but it's a bit too late to help this winter, and they're the third largest consumer in the world after the US and and China. India is 8th.

The US imports a lot from Mexico, 15.5% of the total $3.36 trillion of US import, right here in the Americas. The EU about imports are about 18.5%.

Merz's mother-of-all-deals needs to have India lower its imposed tariffs on Germany of 100-150% on autos, which would cut against India if the new FTA goes through by Q2 2026.

May you live in interesting times is a wish or curse coming to fruition...

Not in one year no, but in 5-10 years, certainly. Solar is cheaper than coal in China today and they blew through their capacity targets. I was just there and the EV adoption is phenomenal. The buses, even some heavy trucks are EV.

If this pace keeps up for 10 years I don’t see how methane will be useful in the energy sector. Let’s face it, we’re investing in a dying industry. In 20 years our kids (or grandkids) will laugh at any country burning methane to make electricity.

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