Shift in relations and unpredictability of Donald Trump make it ‘risky to store so much gold in the US’, say experts
Germany is facing calls to withdraw its billions of euros’ worth of gold from US vaults, spurred on by the shift in transatlantic relations and the unpredictability of Donald Trump.
Germany holds the world’s second biggest national gold reserves after the US, of which approximately €164bn (£122bn) worth – 1,236 tonnes – is stored in New York.
Emanuel Mönch, a leading economist and former head of research at Germany’s federal bank, the Bundesbank, called for the gold to be brought home, saying it was too “risky” for it to be kept in the US under the current administration.
WTF happened in 1971‽‽
Nixon fucked the world through the dollar.
In short, the world is paying the US to fuck around, since Bretton Woods replaced gold with the the USD, meaning that the US gets unlimited money while they get to spread their inflationary pressure around the world.
Charles de Gaulle, president of France at the time wasn’t as stupid as most world leaders, and ended up preserving at least some semblance of fiscal independence by smuggling the French gold back from the US.
One way of looking at it is that we literally cannot afford war. I mean moneywise. Nixon removed the dollar from the gold standard in order to finance the Vietnam war, which the US lost in the military sense but won in the sense of the military industry making a whole lot of money. Literally more money than was even possible.
Damn. Not just one interrobang, but two?