> “A more equal spread of the gold supply between North America, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. also helps to spread the risk.”
They’re not exiting all the gold held in North America; instead they’re rebalancing so that for more resilience against a backdrop of increased geopolitical risk.
No, but "removing" around half of it from one place is quite a bit. Though I doubt any single physical kg ever moved more than a few meters to the buying countries vault. edit: They physically moved 27 tons, the rest was traded away and bought again in London.
It's a hedge against the risk of the current government. Leaving a bunch here is part of the hedge. It's not as "multifaceted" as you're making it out to be.
Considering the Netherlands’ strategic ties with the US, this sounds like quite a bold move. France doing so was one thing, but the Dutchs have always been rather Atlanticists.
Another interesting aspect to this story is the flow of value from US Treasuries to gold.
Total gold held by central banks globally was valued at approximately $4tr at
the start of 2026, surpassing, for the first time, the roughly $3.9tr in US
Treasuries held by the same institutions. This marked a reordering of reserve
asset preferences with significant long-term implications. [0]
This shows how much trust in the US has declined due to Trump. Netherlands is not the only or first country to do this, other countries have started this too.
No it's not simple to call "he" did this. WH people, half? of the country supporting him for 2nd time, and wealthy people that donated so much too, it's never "he". Nothing big like that is one persons responsibility. Actions have cons. ?
All elected and supported, especially AFTER how he and his supports lead the so many extra deaths in covid. I know your media does not bring facts but truth is out there.
This! I get frustrated when i hear folks in the US claim Trump has failed them. You failed yourselves. The system is falling apart and barely half of people turn up to participate in elections? What are the rest of us expected to take away from this? Apathy is what I take away from it, and that does not earn my trust.
The legend about the sole man in charge has been carefully crafted and cultivated for ages, but it's never the puppet and always puppet masters in this clown show.
Sadly, the way people vote is more complicated than you might believe. Trump is the symptom of malfunctioning system that doesn't give people good options in the ballot box.
I'll say something controversial: Clinton and Harris were both better options than the guy who started his campaign mocking a reporter's disability. If voters had any sense it should've ended right there.
The rationalizing, the "corrupt DNC" arguments and everything else is a cop-out.
Here's a real controversial opinion: If Clinton had won, the eventual backlash would be much greater and have elected a far more odious figure than Trump. America is lucky that Trump is kind of a bumbling oaf that channeled populist rage.
Disagree. Trump has done way more damage than Clinton ever could have. The backlash would’ve been similar to post Obama cuz the racists are also the sexists.
That kind of normalises Trump, which totally the wrong thing to do. You should not accept this as fact, nor should you tolerate this current regime. Doing so without protest is the biggest problem you have. Your defeatism is a self fulfilling prophecy.
That explains how he got almost half the votes on election night, but it does not explain the 1/3 that still to this day support him 100%. There is a pretty substantial underlying problem in play and Trump is the symptom, but the problem is deeper than a malfunctioning political system.
That explains how he got the votes on election night in 2016. A vote for Grump in 2016 was completely understandable. But he should have plainly been a one term president, after his abjectly terrible handling of Covid (for starters, we needed leadership rather than dividership). But unfortunately in our upside-down world, Covid actually handed Grump a big excuse for why his first term was such an abject failure. And if there is one thing Grump is good at, it's weaseling responsibility onto others - a quality that his followers greatly admire as it soothes their own consciences as well.
It is almost unheard of in the US for an elected politician to poll lower than 30%, it seems to be a floor. This is for both parties, and all sorts of terrible behavior.
I disagree not because " brainwashed MAGA crowd" but because people saying "it can't be worse" are almost always wrong. Unless you're starving in the ruins of your house in one of the world's war zones, in which case you're likely not focussed on saying that.
Pick any of the leader's third-rate third-tier henchmen or failsons for example of a worse option. Don't dismiss it out of hand.
People in the UK voted for Brexit because "well it can't be worse, can it?"
When he ran, did he say that he'd make tariff rates bounce around like a kangaroo on speed? No, I don't think he did.
Did he say that he'd threaten to annex Canada and Greenland? Not that I recall.
Did he say that he'd start a war with Iran? No, I'm pretty sure he said "No new wars."
Look, he's a loose cannon. Everyone who voted for him should have known that. But no, he's not doing "exactly what he said he would do when he ran". Some of what he's doing is what he said, and some is completely contradictory to what he said.
(Credit where due: I stole the "kangaroo on speed" line from an unpublished short story. Don't remember the author, or I'd give them credit by name.)
So what? None of this is a surprise at all, if his voters fell for his "president of peace" bit then thats on them, at minimum they KNEW they were voting for a loose cannon who had no morals, cared about himself, insulted everyone around him, had terrible monetary and international policy... He bank rupted CASINOS for gods sake. They had every sign the 2nd time around, anyone who voted for him and regrets it now mainly does so because his bad choices are now personally affecting them lets not get it twisted. They were all happy as long as "others" got owned and not them
> Anyone can be held accountable for things they are responsible for, the question is how they'll react to being held thusly.
Voters are responsible for selecting representatives, but they are not responsible for running things and making the kinds of decisions that elected officials need to and do make.
> If they could have known or suspected those things, then yes, they bear the responsibility.
In a situation like this, I like to do a thought experiment where I replace "Trump" with "Republican voter" in a headline or a story to see whether that idea holds up.
He opened the door, and I find it very, very unlikely that either side will close it after this. Dems and Reps will both use this to take control in ways that would have been unthinkable prior to Trump's first election. The only way to restore any measure of that trust would be to pass laws that prevent this kind of abuse, and there's no way that politicians will give up power they've gained.
They had the laws to stop him but since congress stopped legislating, it gave the supreme courts wide discretion to approve executive actions. Strong executive isn’t a flaw of the system, it’s the inevitable consequence of years of media illiteracy and vast sums of money in politics enabled by citizens united.
The ideal would be that a new president is elected who uses current powers to reverse/rebuild what Trump has torn down and have their "one big bill" that Congress seems to pull off per president be a reforms package that locks in additional checks and legislative powers against the Executive. The Unitary Executive theory is the most dangerous attack on our Constitution in a long time.
On the other hand, a right-wing Supreme Court may try to block any reforms that check the Executive. The Legislature's ultimate oversight power of the Exec is impeachment, and they have decided that no amount of corruption or crime or destruction should be checked as long as it "feels right".
The sociopathic criminals who dominate American business and politics are the cause of the kleptocracy; plus the tens of millions of citizens indoctrinated with mental illness from their disinformation and psychological warfare.
None of this should be a surprise to you if you've ever watched Fox News and derivatives; propaganda so on the nose it would make a nazi blush.
Trump is the effect, not the cause. I think it goes back to the emergence of the Triangulation strategy in 1996[1], with its abandonment of principles, and substitution of virtual signaling. This unlocked the unfettered pursuit of donor money for the DNC.
Then in 2008-10, the promise of socialized medicine by Obama was broken, and was replaced with the subsidized insurance oligarchy by Obama's chief of staff.[2]
Then we got to 2016, and the Democratic primary was subverted by DNC leadership.[3] This caused many to become deeply dissatisfied with the DNC, including myself.
Interesting. I am always suspicious of "great man" explanations of history and the same applies to current events - not that individual choices do not matter, but they are constrained and influenced by bigger social forces.
Something similar happened in the UK, as the major parties moved towards a consensus as they both went after critical centrist voters (because the left and right voters were not going anywhere else - at the time anyway).
It is result of long term conservative project. And somehow you managed to blame non-conservatives for it.
Trump is a cause of destruction. He is literally making those decisions. He is to blame. Trump and project 2025 are what republicans and conservatives were trying to achieve for years and years. Again, it hapened intentionally.
But noooooo, must blame Obama. Anyone except directly responsable organizations and people.
It may be quirky for Americans to hear this, but one pivotal moment when it truly dawned on the average european citizen how corrupt the US has become, was when Trump phoned Infantino to drop a red card during the world cup. Blatant corruption for zero gain that even the Putin's and Xi Jin Pings never attempted. Any toddler could see how wrong it was and it was felt deeply in many hearts.
Needless to say trust is close to 0% throughout the population - even the right wing populists distance themselves from Trump - and this is the consequence. I fear we are heading into dangerous times.
One example to illustrate: when talking about dying, Americans would kick the bucket, Poles would kick the calendar, French would break the pipe, Germans would drop the spoon, and the Spanish would pull the leather. But they all would be referring to the US's trust among its allies.
In the US "Could care less" is the equivalent to the British expression "Couldn't care less". The intention and meaning is the same. So the original comment did mean to say what they said.
My point was that what may look like a mistake or a contradiction is just cultural development of natural language.
Another example is the British expression "It would be cheap at half the price"
I think you misunderstood the emphasis there - yes Europeans love football.
The point is that it's so blatant for such little gain, it's still a game. I.e. if he is willing to do that so openly for such low stakes, imagine what he does behind closed doors when it matters.
Nah it was an egregiously bad call by itself, and then the slow-mo VAR was used to justify it which is also against their own rules. So they corrected a mistake that could have severely impacted the result and integrity of the rest of the games.
Doesn't matter. There's constant bad calls being made by referees. It shouldn't be, but their humans and make mistakes and it's part of the game. But only the mistake against the US got corrected.
FIFA is NOT a European institution it is the global one.
The European football institution is UEFA which has complained about things like this and is also trying to remove Infantino – but the rest of the world has been bribed enough to keep him on.
Conversations like this make me want more gatekeeping especially for football. Some people just don’t have respect to customs and traditional practices and the actual untouchables.
To not to sway too far away, well technically yes. However all 55 UEFA members threathened to quit FIFA after Infanito’s plan to privatise the World Cup. It was just last month. And we all know who is behind this.
Would FIFA be less corrupt if it were legally incorporated somewhere else?
I didn't know registering an entity in another place automatically changed the character of the people that run it. That's magic. Literally mind-control.
> The point is that FIFA is a corrupt European institution
I'll ask you again: what actually affects how an organization runs? The place that it's registered in, or the people in charge?
It has "international" right there in the name. The vast majority of its members are not "European" in any sense. Calling it "European" is offensive to most of the footballing world. It reeks of a colonial attitude.
> But maybe you're trying to make a No True Scotsman argument.
If FIFA were registered in the Caymans would you call it a Caymanian organization?
FIFA is a deeply corrupt institution (IDK if they count as specifically European, but if they do, it doesn't change the fact that they're corrupt). The US government is also deeply corrupt.
> Blatant corruption for zero gain that even the Putin's and Xi Jin Pings never attempted.... was when Trump phoned Infantino to drop a red card during the world cup.
FIFA, a largely European organization created by Europeans for a sport that Americans barely care about and in the center of multiple corruption scandals and controversies over the last few decades and you're really going to sit here and try to tell others that the real wakeup call was when Trump made a phone call to ask that a star player who by many respects shouldn't have received a red card over at best a technicality in the first place be reinstated for the good of sport and competition...?
And you're also going to claim that this "level of corruption" is something Vladimir Putin or Xi Jingping and their corrupt authoritarian regimes would never dream of attempting?
I guess Donald Trump's phone call was the real last straw, and something like, idk, 6,500 migrant workers in Qatar dying to construct World Cup facilities is just another day at the anti-corruption office? [1]
There is a big difference between some sports association being greedy/unethical and elected officials abusing their position of power (especially when they sit in the highest positions and there are zero consequences).
Right, its just we all lose respect and we're real mad when Donald Trump makes a phone call about something that, well you know frankly the American public agreed with, and we don't lose respect or whatever and we're not outraged when that same extremely corrupt organization continues to do greedy, unethical, and corrupt things.
It's astounding that European governments would never do corrupt things. Totally never. And if they did, sorry they only draw the line at influencing FIFA.
To add to this, because I think it is important context for Americans who may not be aware, football is seen very officially by many European nations and national governments as a cultural counterpart to many international treaties within Europe that were born out of the desire to bring our respective cultures closer together after the second world war.
It is so important, that many countries make it illegal to hide international football matches behind paywalls, specifically.
It is so important, that there are articles written about its importance on EU institutes websites. For example, this one reflects on Footballs importance in relation to the First, Second and Cold wars. https://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/alerts/european-footb...
To see Trump so flagrantly manipulate it sends a cultural signal that is hard for those outside of Europe to see, and that by some can be seen as the cultural equivalent of the political threats Trump has made against NATO.
At this point, your average European Trump supporter/right wing populist needs only reminding of Trumps interference to get a complete positional change - that's how bad it is.
> It is so important, that many countries make it illegal to hide international football matches behind paywalls, specifically.
Sports is peak diversion from real issues, Whether Europe, US or India and so on. The countries can go to hell, people can drown in endless real problems. But if people can be smothered with sport entertainment so they ignore real things whats better than that.
In India whole country can become absolute crap. Worst on any social, economic indicator but as long free cricket broadcast is on TV and mobile, life is good.
Stated in another article it said the reason is it cannot be used as a bargaining chip during trade disputes. They specifically mentioned it would likely be more difficult to use in emergency situations when located in North America (without mentioning specific reasons).
Well, one of their near neighbouring countries is currently worried about Trump stealing their territory, and he's made threats to annex Canada too, so it's not exactly an unreasonable fear.
Dutch gold reserve is only 50 billion which wouldn't even be enough to run the country for half a year. Other than the symbolical value it's pocket change.
Just in time before major European continental war begin. Strategic move.
For the context : German airport was officially attacked by Russia . And that’s only one of many incidents. UK is on the radar of official Russian hawks for a very long time
More a vs. US strategy than a vs. Russia strategy.
Russia has been weird for a long time, they are doing sub-threshold-of-war attacks for a while now.
But the USA? Outright threatening allies, talking about annexing some of them, making more threats against other allies who make moves to defend those allies? And he's got a known love for gold, started wars without bothering to inform allies he's now trying to punish for failing to provide help that he told them he didn't even want.
Yeah russia has been waging war against the west basically since putin came into power. That paranoid kgb fuck sees anything free as direct threat to their model of how to run a dictatorship and very much a personal threat on top of that (he may not be completely wrong given how proactive cia has been and their general methods of subversion).
This is nothing new for anybody interested in the topic, its all very open and public (which is kind of the point I guess to manipulate public perception too). In same way ie war in Ukraine started in 2014 in all measurable ways, not 2022.
US part... well its painful to watch, especially the incompetence or elephant-in-porcelain-shop part, of a shop that took many decades to build. But its good long term for Europe and rest of west - we became uber weak and over-reliant on US bases, their tech and power projection, and even if its 2026, influence not backed by real power means very little in actual world out there. Be provably strong or vanish seems to be mantra. Its smart to adapt to reality rather than expect the world to rearrange itself to some idealistic wishful thinking, however nice it may feel.
That was a rather obvious false flag attempt, presumably from Ukraine. It was a weaponized drone, the first that would have been directly used against NATO, that was found just outside a Ukrainian plane and by amazing coincidence just sat there instead of detonating.
When Russia wants to directly attack NATO they'll likely do exactly what the US/EU is doing and simply arm e.g. Iran/Houthis/etc with weapons/locations, let them push the button, and then go all Slava Allah or whatever while Russia is like 'oh we're not involved in this conflict you have with Iran.' Great precedent that's been set.
---
That said I do expect Russia is likely involved in at least some of the incidents of weapons factories and other things that have been going boom, but it's always going to be done with plausible deniability - sleeper agents with no direct ties to Russia, and the like. They're not going to just start bombing planes in airports with drones.
> That said I do expect Russia is likely involved in at least some of the incidents of weapons factories
They're involved in all of them.
> sleeper agents with no direct ties to Russia
This isn't a movie. They pay criminals to do criminal activity. They're not utilizing "sleeper agents" to burn down a building.
>When Russia wants to directly attack NATO they'll likely do exactly what the US/EU is doing and simply arm e.g. Iran/Houthis/etc with weapons/locations, let them push the button, and then go all Slava Allah or whatever while Russia is like 'oh we're not involved in this conflict you have with Iran.' Great precedent that's been set.
What does this even mean? Are you equating Ukraine with Iran and the Houthis?
Thinking that there's a major continental war about to begin is exactly what Russia wants people to think and what they push through their propaganda machine. It's also good for some governments, because then nobody questions military spending. Poland just bought 96 Apache assault helicopters for 10B USD. It takes just 1M USD in drones to take them down, just to show how absurd show of loyalty to US that deal was.
There's issues with defending the east flank. Namely, without taking full control of the Baltic Sea, Baltic States and Finland will run out of provisions in weeks.
No, the German US lapdogs put out a statement that the drones in Leipzig “are known to us from other Russian hybrid operations and its war against Ukraine” and that they “pointed to a high degree of technical expertise”.
So high in fact that the operation malfunctioned. Precisely what a false flag would do.
The US indeed would like to expand the Ukrainian proxy war to the Baltics so it can carry out its own plans of getting various oil rich countries.
All that these stupid politics accomplish is that the AfD will have 35% in the next elections so Germany can enjoy Trump-like corruption and the industry can exploit people even more. At this point one wonders if the CDU is in on it and the AfD is secretly already part of the uniparty, public theater of forbidding the AfD notwithstanding.
Comparing that German airport "attack" by Russia to the 9/11 attack by Mr. bin Laden - would you say that all gold reserves should have been moved out of the USA back in 2001?
Looking at TFA, they are moving it to a venue where selling off the gold can happen quickly. This kind of thing was not necessary for the USA's approach to funding the War on Terror because we decided on a really innovative combo of Taking On Debt and also Just Not Accounting For Things which will surely have no consequence later on.
Fun fact, France did exactly the same earlier this year (though the trend has been there for decades).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_repatriation#France
> “A more equal spread of the gold supply between North America, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. also helps to spread the risk.”
They’re not exiting all the gold held in North America; instead they’re rebalancing so that for more resilience against a backdrop of increased geopolitical risk.
No, but "removing" around half of it from one place is quite a bit. Though I doubt any single physical kg ever moved more than a few meters to the buying countries vault. edit: They physically moved 27 tons, the rest was traded away and bought again in London.
Can’t move what isn’t there
That is what the pamphlet says.
Fact is, it was not a issue before, because of trust.
"for more resilience against a backdrop of increased geopolitical risk." is just nice wording for "Trump is burning down all bridges".
> "for more resilience against a backdrop of increased geopolitical risk." is just nice wording for "Trump is burning down all bridges".
It is more multifaceted than that. To wit: they're leaving a substantial amount still in North America.
America's actions is a big part of it, but it isn't the only reason.
It's a hedge against the risk of the current government. Leaving a bunch here is part of the hedge. It's not as "multifaceted" as you're making it out to be.
Everyone now has to hedge against the dollar because Elon, bank run Thiel, and Trump have taken over the system.
I will not get better until they are removed.
It is not in their interest to save the federal government, US dollar, or the economy.
They are all BRIICS backed and want the dollar and trans atlanticism, backed by the US military, to fail.
Considering the Netherlands’ strategic ties with the US, this sounds like quite a bold move. France doing so was one thing, but the Dutchs have always been rather Atlanticists.
Literally moves? Physically moves? Come on, doesn't this make your hands itch? Is it heist time folks?
Another interesting aspect to this story is the flow of value from US Treasuries to gold.
0. https://www.investing.com/analysis/why-central-banks-are-bri...What are the long term implications? Gold can’t reasonably be the medium so new currency baskets?
This shows how much trust in the US has declined due to Trump. Netherlands is not the only or first country to do this, other countries have started this too.
And this lost trust will not suddenly reappear when he leaves office. He has damaged our reputation for a generation
No it's not simple to call "he" did this. WH people, half? of the country supporting him for 2nd time, and wealthy people that donated so much too, it's never "he". Nothing big like that is one persons responsibility. Actions have cons. ?
All elected and supported, especially AFTER how he and his supports lead the so many extra deaths in covid. I know your media does not bring facts but truth is out there.
Totally valid correction, thanks !
Not half the country. Almost half of the people who voted.
This! I get frustrated when i hear folks in the US claim Trump has failed them. You failed yourselves. The system is falling apart and barely half of people turn up to participate in elections? What are the rest of us expected to take away from this? Apathy is what I take away from it, and that does not earn my trust.
The legend about the sole man in charge has been carefully crafted and cultivated for ages, but it's never the puppet and always puppet masters in this clown show.
Sadly, the way people vote is more complicated than you might believe. Trump is the symptom of malfunctioning system that doesn't give people good options in the ballot box.
I'll say something controversial: Clinton and Harris were both better options than the guy who started his campaign mocking a reporter's disability. If voters had any sense it should've ended right there.
The rationalizing, the "corrupt DNC" arguments and everything else is a cop-out.
Here's a real controversial opinion: If Clinton had won, the eventual backlash would be much greater and have elected a far more odious figure than Trump. America is lucky that Trump is kind of a bumbling oaf that channeled populist rage.
Maybe the backlash would've been in Congress, through the election of more extreme figures on the right and left.
Disagree. Trump has done way more damage than Clinton ever could have. The backlash would’ve been similar to post Obama cuz the racists are also the sexists.
That kind of normalises Trump, which totally the wrong thing to do. You should not accept this as fact, nor should you tolerate this current regime. Doing so without protest is the biggest problem you have. Your defeatism is a self fulfilling prophecy.
yes! we need ranked choice voting everywhere!
That explains how he got almost half the votes on election night, but it does not explain the 1/3 that still to this day support him 100%. There is a pretty substantial underlying problem in play and Trump is the symptom, but the problem is deeper than a malfunctioning political system.
That explains how he got the votes on election night in 2016. A vote for Grump in 2016 was completely understandable. But he should have plainly been a one term president, after his abjectly terrible handling of Covid (for starters, we needed leadership rather than dividership). But unfortunately in our upside-down world, Covid actually handed Grump a big excuse for why his first term was such an abject failure. And if there is one thing Grump is good at, it's weaseling responsibility onto others - a quality that his followers greatly admire as it soothes their own consciences as well.
It is almost unheard of in the US for an elected politician to poll lower than 30%, it seems to be a floor. This is for both parties, and all sorts of terrible behavior.
> almost unheard of in the US for an elected politician to poll lower than 30%, it seems to be a floor
Alan Keyes apparently set the floor at 27%
https://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunch-discussions-145-...
And lizardman's Constant is 4% https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Lizardman%27s_Constant
Are you saying there was a worse option than Trump?
Really?
Because unless the alternative option was a diminutive Austrian with a dodgy 'tache, I find that rather hard to believe.
The reality is America voted for Trump (TWICE!) because they wanted him. The rest of the world knows this, and is now acting accordingly.
EDIT: Downvotes coming from the brainwashed MAGA crowd!
I disagree not because " brainwashed MAGA crowd" but because people saying "it can't be worse" are almost always wrong. Unless you're starving in the ruins of your house in one of the world's war zones, in which case you're likely not focussed on saying that.
Pick any of the leader's third-rate third-tier henchmen or failsons for example of a worse option. Don't dismiss it out of hand.
People in the UK voted for Brexit because "well it can't be worse, can it?"
I don't disagree with the "The reality is" line.
Voters cannot be held accountable for all the specific things the person they elected do.
That much should be self-evident.
He’s doing exactly what he said he would do when he ran. People who voted for him can very much be held accountable.
> People who voted for him can very much be held accountable.
Can you give an example of how, in practice, it would work to hold millions of voters accountable for what their elected representative does?
Worth picking not just Trump, but let's say a few other Presidents around the world, including someone you voted for.
When he ran, did he say that he'd make tariff rates bounce around like a kangaroo on speed? No, I don't think he did.
Did he say that he'd threaten to annex Canada and Greenland? Not that I recall.
Did he say that he'd start a war with Iran? No, I'm pretty sure he said "No new wars."
Look, he's a loose cannon. Everyone who voted for him should have known that. But no, he's not doing "exactly what he said he would do when he ran". Some of what he's doing is what he said, and some is completely contradictory to what he said.
(Credit where due: I stole the "kangaroo on speed" line from an unpublished short story. Don't remember the author, or I'd give them credit by name.)
If you found anything he did surprising you haven’t been paying attention to him at all.
So what? None of this is a surprise at all, if his voters fell for his "president of peace" bit then thats on them, at minimum they KNEW they were voting for a loose cannon who had no morals, cared about himself, insulted everyone around him, had terrible monetary and international policy... He bank rupted CASINOS for gods sake. They had every sign the 2nd time around, anyone who voted for him and regrets it now mainly does so because his bad choices are now personally affecting them lets not get it twisted. They were all happy as long as "others" got owned and not them
Is this sarcasm?
That’s the definition of democracy. Of course voting is significant and has consequences.
> That’s the definition of democracy.
In a democracy, it is the elected officials, who are meant to represent the voter, that are held accountable. Not the voter.
> Of course voting is significant and has consequences.
Tautology but also not relevant. How do you propose the voter be held accountable?
Voters can be held accountable; he demonstrated exactly what he was the first time in office and then people voted for him again.
Anyone can be held accountable for things they are responsible for, the question is how they'll react to being held thusly.
> Anyone can be held accountable for things they are responsible for, the question is how they'll react to being held thusly.
Voters are responsible for selecting representatives, but they are not responsible for running things and making the kinds of decisions that elected officials need to and do make.
If they could have known or suspected those things, then yes, they bear the responsibility. And Trump's intentions were there for all to see.
> If they could have known or suspected those things, then yes, they bear the responsibility.
In a situation like this, I like to do a thought experiment where I replace "Trump" with "Republican voter" in a headline or a story to see whether that idea holds up.
What if they knew what they were voting for?
And I'd argue that it should.
He opened the door, and I find it very, very unlikely that either side will close it after this. Dems and Reps will both use this to take control in ways that would have been unthinkable prior to Trump's first election. The only way to restore any measure of that trust would be to pass laws that prevent this kind of abuse, and there's no way that politicians will give up power they've gained.
They had the laws to stop him but since congress stopped legislating, it gave the supreme courts wide discretion to approve executive actions. Strong executive isn’t a flaw of the system, it’s the inevitable consequence of years of media illiteracy and vast sums of money in politics enabled by citizens united.
The ideal would be that a new president is elected who uses current powers to reverse/rebuild what Trump has torn down and have their "one big bill" that Congress seems to pull off per president be a reforms package that locks in additional checks and legislative powers against the Executive. The Unitary Executive theory is the most dangerous attack on our Constitution in a long time.
On the other hand, a right-wing Supreme Court may try to block any reforms that check the Executive. The Legislature's ultimate oversight power of the Exec is impeachment, and they have decided that no amount of corruption or crime or destruction should be checked as long as it "feels right".
The sociopathic criminals who dominate American business and politics are the cause of the kleptocracy; plus the tens of millions of citizens indoctrinated with mental illness from their disinformation and psychological warfare.
None of this should be a surprise to you if you've ever watched Fox News and derivatives; propaganda so on the nose it would make a nazi blush.
In the end it is all about money. Putin killed hundreds of EU citizens and we are still buying his gas, oil, uranium and fertilizer.
Trump can bomb cities in Europe and we would trade with the US. I doubt we will ever fully separate from the US.
Trump is the effect, not the cause. I think it goes back to the emergence of the Triangulation strategy in 1996[1], with its abandonment of principles, and substitution of virtual signaling. This unlocked the unfettered pursuit of donor money for the DNC.
Then in 2008-10, the promise of socialized medicine by Obama was broken, and was replaced with the subsidized insurance oligarchy by Obama's chief of staff.[2]
Then we got to 2016, and the Democratic primary was subverted by DNC leadership.[3] This caused many to become deeply dissatisfied with the DNC, including myself.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(politics)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel#White_House_chief...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Wasserman_Schultz#2016_...
Interesting. I am always suspicious of "great man" explanations of history and the same applies to current events - not that individual choices do not matter, but they are constrained and influenced by bigger social forces.
Something similar happened in the UK, as the major parties moved towards a consensus as they both went after critical centrist voters (because the left and right voters were not going anywhere else - at the time anyway).
It is result of long term conservative project. And somehow you managed to blame non-conservatives for it.
Trump is a cause of destruction. He is literally making those decisions. He is to blame. Trump and project 2025 are what republicans and conservatives were trying to achieve for years and years. Again, it hapened intentionally.
But noooooo, must blame Obama. Anyone except directly responsable organizations and people.
It may be quirky for Americans to hear this, but one pivotal moment when it truly dawned on the average european citizen how corrupt the US has become, was when Trump phoned Infantino to drop a red card during the world cup. Blatant corruption for zero gain that even the Putin's and Xi Jin Pings never attempted. Any toddler could see how wrong it was and it was felt deeply in many hearts.
Needless to say trust is close to 0% throughout the population - even the right wing populists distance themselves from Trump - and this is the consequence. I fear we are heading into dangerous times.
Unironically true. The average person could care less about following politics, but Europeans live football.
> could care less
Surely you mean couldn't care less.
I just saw David Mitchell fall to his knees at a Waitrose
Weird Al - Word Crimes
Countries have different idioms.
Please explain?
One example to illustrate: when talking about dying, Americans would kick the bucket, Poles would kick the calendar, French would break the pipe, Germans would drop the spoon, and the Spanish would pull the leather. But they all would be referring to the US's trust among its allies.
In the US "Could care less" is the equivalent to the British expression "Couldn't care less". The intention and meaning is the same. So the original comment did mean to say what they said.
My point was that what may look like a mistake or a contradiction is just cultural development of natural language.
Another example is the British expression "It would be cheap at half the price"
Well, I could care less, personally. I wish I did care less!
https://xkcd.com/1576/
> The average person could care less about following politics
Could they?
I think you misunderstood the emphasis there - yes Europeans love football.
The point is that it's so blatant for such little gain, it's still a game. I.e. if he is willing to do that so openly for such low stakes, imagine what he does behind closed doors when it matters.
Nah it was an egregiously bad call by itself, and then the slow-mo VAR was used to justify it which is also against their own rules. So they corrected a mistake that could have severely impacted the result and integrity of the rest of the games.
But yeah, people got upset...
Doesn't matter. There's constant bad calls being made by referees. It shouldn't be, but their humans and make mistakes and it's part of the game. But only the mistake against the US got corrected.
How are we explaining Ronaldo not being required to serve his remaining 2-match suspensions at the start of the games?
Same, FIFA is just corrupt.
Okay so then we are agreeing that FIFA, a European institution, is a deeply corrupt, inconsistent, and unprincipled governing body.
But somehow this was the fault of the US?
FIFA is NOT a European institution it is the global one.
The European football institution is UEFA which has complained about things like this and is also trying to remove Infantino – but the rest of the world has been bribed enough to keep him on.
Fifa is a European legal entity, right? headquartered in Switzerland?
Conversations like this make me want more gatekeeping especially for football. Some people just don’t have respect to customs and traditional practices and the actual untouchables.
To not to sway too far away, well technically yes. However all 55 UEFA members threathened to quit FIFA after Infanito’s plan to privatise the World Cup. It was just last month. And we all know who is behind this.
Does that make the UN American?
Is the UN a private organization legally incorporated in the US? The way that FIFA is in Europe/Switzerland?
Would FIFA be less corrupt if it were legally incorporated somewhere else?
I didn't know registering an entity in another place automatically changed the character of the people that run it. That's magic. Literally mind-control.
The point is that FIFA is a corrupt European institution and that has nothing to do with the US.
But maybe you're trying to make a No True Scotsman argument.
> The point is that FIFA is a corrupt European institution
I'll ask you again: what actually affects how an organization runs? The place that it's registered in, or the people in charge?
It has "international" right there in the name. The vast majority of its members are not "European" in any sense. Calling it "European" is offensive to most of the footballing world. It reeks of a colonial attitude.
> But maybe you're trying to make a No True Scotsman argument.
If FIFA were registered in the Caymans would you call it a Caymanian organization?
FIFA is a deeply corrupt institution (IDK if they count as specifically European, but if they do, it doesn't change the fact that they're corrupt). The US government is also deeply corrupt.
> Blatant corruption for zero gain that even the Putin's and Xi Jin Pings never attempted.... was when Trump phoned Infantino to drop a red card during the world cup.
FIFA, a largely European organization created by Europeans for a sport that Americans barely care about and in the center of multiple corruption scandals and controversies over the last few decades and you're really going to sit here and try to tell others that the real wakeup call was when Trump made a phone call to ask that a star player who by many respects shouldn't have received a red card over at best a technicality in the first place be reinstated for the good of sport and competition...?
And you're also going to claim that this "level of corruption" is something Vladimir Putin or Xi Jingping and their corrupt authoritarian regimes would never dream of attempting?
I guess Donald Trump's phone call was the real last straw, and something like, idk, 6,500 migrant workers in Qatar dying to construct World Cup facilities is just another day at the anti-corruption office? [1]
I'm going to assume you're being sarcastic...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/r...
There is a big difference between some sports association being greedy/unethical and elected officials abusing their position of power (especially when they sit in the highest positions and there are zero consequences).
Right, its just we all lose respect and we're real mad when Donald Trump makes a phone call about something that, well you know frankly the American public agreed with, and we don't lose respect or whatever and we're not outraged when that same extremely corrupt organization continues to do greedy, unethical, and corrupt things.
It's astounding that European governments would never do corrupt things. Totally never. And if they did, sorry they only draw the line at influencing FIFA.
Yes but,
orange man bad
To add to this, because I think it is important context for Americans who may not be aware, football is seen very officially by many European nations and national governments as a cultural counterpart to many international treaties within Europe that were born out of the desire to bring our respective cultures closer together after the second world war.
It is so important, that many countries make it illegal to hide international football matches behind paywalls, specifically.
It is so important, that there are articles written about its importance on EU institutes websites. For example, this one reflects on Footballs importance in relation to the First, Second and Cold wars. https://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/alerts/european-footb...
To see Trump so flagrantly manipulate it sends a cultural signal that is hard for those outside of Europe to see, and that by some can be seen as the cultural equivalent of the political threats Trump has made against NATO.
At this point, your average European Trump supporter/right wing populist needs only reminding of Trumps interference to get a complete positional change - that's how bad it is.
> It is so important, that many countries make it illegal to hide international football matches behind paywalls, specifically.
Sports is peak diversion from real issues, Whether Europe, US or India and so on. The countries can go to hell, people can drown in endless real problems. But if people can be smothered with sport entertainment so they ignore real things whats better than that.
In India whole country can become absolute crap. Worst on any social, economic indicator but as long free cricket broadcast is on TV and mobile, life is good.
Is this to prevent the Orange man from stealing it? What do they imagine the risk is?
Stated in another article it said the reason is it cannot be used as a bargaining chip during trade disputes. They specifically mentioned it would likely be more difficult to use in emergency situations when located in North America (without mentioning specific reasons).
Well, one of their near neighbouring countries is currently worried about Trump stealing their territory, and he's made threats to annex Canada too, so it's not exactly an unreasonable fear.
Would you put it past Trump to use gold stores as a threat?
Their national color is orange so they should get along with him fine
Dutch gold reserve is only 50 billion which wouldn't even be enough to run the country for half a year. Other than the symbolical value it's pocket change.
It's the 11th largest in the world, or about 7.5% of the US reserves which is a lot more than the gdp difference (4.4%)
Just in time before major European continental war begin. Strategic move.
For the context : German airport was officially attacked by Russia . And that’s only one of many incidents. UK is on the radar of official Russian hawks for a very long time
More a vs. US strategy than a vs. Russia strategy.
Russia has been weird for a long time, they are doing sub-threshold-of-war attacks for a while now.
But the USA? Outright threatening allies, talking about annexing some of them, making more threats against other allies who make moves to defend those allies? And he's got a known love for gold, started wars without bothering to inform allies he's now trying to punish for failing to provide help that he told them he didn't even want.
Yeah russia has been waging war against the west basically since putin came into power. That paranoid kgb fuck sees anything free as direct threat to their model of how to run a dictatorship and very much a personal threat on top of that (he may not be completely wrong given how proactive cia has been and their general methods of subversion).
This is nothing new for anybody interested in the topic, its all very open and public (which is kind of the point I guess to manipulate public perception too). In same way ie war in Ukraine started in 2014 in all measurable ways, not 2022.
US part... well its painful to watch, especially the incompetence or elephant-in-porcelain-shop part, of a shop that took many decades to build. But its good long term for Europe and rest of west - we became uber weak and over-reliant on US bases, their tech and power projection, and even if its 2026, influence not backed by real power means very little in actual world out there. Be provably strong or vanish seems to be mantra. Its smart to adapt to reality rather than expect the world to rearrange itself to some idealistic wishful thinking, however nice it may feel.
US is doing now to Europe and Canada what russia was doing for the last 30 (or 300) years to their neighbours. No response -- push further is the game
That was a rather obvious false flag attempt, presumably from Ukraine. It was a weaponized drone, the first that would have been directly used against NATO, that was found just outside a Ukrainian plane and by amazing coincidence just sat there instead of detonating.
When Russia wants to directly attack NATO they'll likely do exactly what the US/EU is doing and simply arm e.g. Iran/Houthis/etc with weapons/locations, let them push the button, and then go all Slava Allah or whatever while Russia is like 'oh we're not involved in this conflict you have with Iran.' Great precedent that's been set.
---
That said I do expect Russia is likely involved in at least some of the incidents of weapons factories and other things that have been going boom, but it's always going to be done with plausible deniability - sleeper agents with no direct ties to Russia, and the like. They're not going to just start bombing planes in airports with drones.
Don't discount russian incompetence and sloppiness. They are really big on half assing everything
> That was a rather obvious false flag attempt
No, it wasn't.
> That said I do expect Russia is likely involved in at least some of the incidents of weapons factories
They're involved in all of them.
> sleeper agents with no direct ties to Russia
This isn't a movie. They pay criminals to do criminal activity. They're not utilizing "sleeper agents" to burn down a building.
>When Russia wants to directly attack NATO they'll likely do exactly what the US/EU is doing and simply arm e.g. Iran/Houthis/etc with weapons/locations, let them push the button, and then go all Slava Allah or whatever while Russia is like 'oh we're not involved in this conflict you have with Iran.' Great precedent that's been set.
What does this even mean? Are you equating Ukraine with Iran and the Houthis?
Thinking that there's a major continental war about to begin is exactly what Russia wants people to think and what they push through their propaganda machine. It's also good for some governments, because then nobody questions military spending. Poland just bought 96 Apache assault helicopters for 10B USD. It takes just 1M USD in drones to take them down, just to show how absurd show of loyalty to US that deal was.
There's issues with defending the east flank. Namely, without taking full control of the Baltic Sea, Baltic States and Finland will run out of provisions in weeks.
> It takes just 1M USD in drones to take them down
You can buy incendiary armor piercing bullets that could take one down for $5, but strangely they've been utilized for decades.
Finland will run out of provisions in a weeks? How so? Will Russia control their western border?
No, the German US lapdogs put out a statement that the drones in Leipzig “are known to us from other Russian hybrid operations and its war against Ukraine” and that they “pointed to a high degree of technical expertise”.
So high in fact that the operation malfunctioned. Precisely what a false flag would do.
The US indeed would like to expand the Ukrainian proxy war to the Baltics so it can carry out its own plans of getting various oil rich countries.
All that these stupid politics accomplish is that the AfD will have 35% in the next elections so Germany can enjoy Trump-like corruption and the industry can exploit people even more. At this point one wonders if the CDU is in on it and the AfD is secretly already part of the uniparty, public theater of forbidding the AfD notwithstanding.
Didn't dear leader (Trump) just say he was going to invade the Bond Market?
If a shooting war breaks out beween the US and the Bond Market, the gold isnt safe anywhere.
> For the context:
Comparing that German airport "attack" by Russia to the 9/11 attack by Mr. bin Laden - would you say that all gold reserves should have been moved out of the USA back in 2001?
Looking at TFA, they are moving it to a venue where selling off the gold can happen quickly. This kind of thing was not necessary for the USA's approach to funding the War on Terror because we decided on a really innovative combo of Taking On Debt and also Just Not Accounting For Things which will surely have no consequence later on.