America was in practice running an empire that collected tribute from the rest of planet earth in exchange for entries in a database denominated in a currency they controlled and was accepted everywhere. Really the only way it could go wrong is putting it under the control of someone too stupid to understand the kayfabe...
Not really. US foreign policy hasn't changed substantially in decades.
More importantly, in the context of this discussion, every president since Bush's first term has had larger deficits than any previous president, regardless of party.
The events of the last year certainly have a role to play, but the overall effect is just the result of trendlines that have been in play for quite a while.
> Gold has always been stable, because it is physically limited.
Incorrect. Physical scarcity matters, but it’s not the main driver. Gold’s price is far more sensitive to interest rates, dollar strength, sentiment and fear, speculative flows.
The stability it’s historically shown was mostly the result of fixed monetary systems, and those are long gone.
its because you are measuring stable Gold in volatile fiat which is being printed every day depending on the factors you mentioned (interest rates, expectations of future growth, sentiment etc).
because you are getting paycheck in fiat, you are psychologically programmed to think of fiat as something stable, and Gold as volatile.
Not really. It has more to do with gold is now worth almost 3x what it was 2 years ago.
And before you get too excited, this "news" from the World Gold Council. A consortium of gold mining corporations. Clearly it's a pump article "have you bought gold yet? everyone else is! why not you!?!?"
It’s not a self decapitation exactly. I think Trump, his family, his corporate donors, and other friends are all willing to sacrifice everyone else - including the lead America had - to make themselves rich and powerful. Every single decision to spend - defense, ICE contracts, AI, approvals of anticompetitive acquisitions, changes to regulations, etc - is making that circle richer at our expense.
They don’t care if American supremacy is lost or if the dollar crashes or if the national debt becomes a crisis. As long as they have their wealth. The public is being decapitated, not them.
True. In that sense the voters have self decapitated. I can’t understand how the Trump administration still has support from 40% of the country (per polls). I could understand voting for him due to some issue a voter has strong feelings about. But now we have seen it all play out and it’s a disaster leading to national ruin. And there is no talk of impeachment, trials, and accountability for everyone in his circle. So I guess that 40% does choose to self decapitate.
Media that is never critical towards one side is what started all of this. A politician's kryptonite is when their voters find out that they lied or were hypocrites. That is a universal truth.
Single party media outlets like News Corp, Sinclair, Euronews, and so many others have broken that system entirely.
My test to see if someone is a shill/moron is to simply ask them to say one obvious bad thing about "their side." If they cannot, it becomes clear that they are not worth listening to.
> and all the conservative news tells them what to believe
And most traditional news is conservative now.
The idea that the mainstream media was ever leftest was always wrong, but these days its absolutely laughable and yet a lot of people still parrot this like it is the truth.
Weakening your own domain to get powerful sounds clearly contradictory, yet there are so many examples of elites doing exactly that despite the fact that doing so must've required foresight and planning elaborate enough to not blind them from the consequences.
basically make decisions that make no sense but benefit you financially. Sample. you run a printing business. you dont own it just run it. you sell your main printer and assign a performance bonus to your self. next month your business is closed because you dont have equipment to print, but you also have your bonus in pocket.
Too tired to write a novel like I usually would here, but we control the printing and, in large part, the distribution of USD. We don't control anything about gold. Then the USD was king, it entailed tremendous power and control in many ways beyond the obvious like the ability to try to kick people out of the 'global' economy. This is the not-so-secret purpose behind BRICS and dates back to issues starting in 1971.
I am actually convinced that the last year started the descent of the U.S. as the world’s super power. No wonder U.S. treasuries lost trust. It’s only going to get worse. It doesn’t matter what some billionaires do/get from their ability to manipulate some powers be. The rest of the investment community understands that free markets are strengthened by rule of law and adherence to the law and deploying a self styled socialistic distribution of economic capital is not signaling strength but weakness to the world.
That’s interesting. Hadn’t thought of it that way. I can’t for the life of me figure out why more blue states aren’t taxing their wealthy occupants to cover the gap in lost federal funding from DOGE. If they were smart they would start stretching that muscle.
The union of states arrangement has the side effect of putting the states in competition with each other for things like new/expanding businesses and residents. It's relatively easy to relocate (or even remain in a state while legally "residing" elsewhere). So there are diminishing returns to raising the tax rates significantly on the upper brackets at the state level. I'm not a believer in the trickle down theory but beyond a certain marginal rate many people would just move to a state with a lower rate.
this somehow excludes such human concept as sense of belonging. might be in usa it has atrophied already but sense of home is really important in some places. place where you spend most of your life, where you have you real social network, neighbors and childhood friends. sometimes its lower tax is not worth loosing it all. its not everything about money (for some)
ps im talking about real persons here, not corporations
America was in practice running an empire that collected tribute from the rest of planet earth in exchange for entries in a database denominated in a currency they controlled and was accepted everywhere. Really the only way it could go wrong is putting it under the control of someone too stupid to understand the kayfabe...
> someone too stupid to understand
That's only true if he's actually "your guy". There's an alternative where it's not stupidity that I think more people should be mulling over.
elections have consequences...
Not really. US foreign policy hasn't changed substantially in decades.
More importantly, in the context of this discussion, every president since Bush's first term has had larger deficits than any previous president, regardless of party.
This glosses over what Bush was handed from the previous guy and then what he left behind for the next guy.
Dated Jan 9. When the headlines is in present tense, it is kinda misleading to post as-is at a later time.
The events of the last year certainly have a role to play, but the overall effect is just the result of trendlines that have been in play for quite a while.
Here's a world gold council (i know...) review/survey of central banks gold holdings from mid 2025 (https://www.gold.org/goldhub/research/central-bank-gold-rese...). It notes that gold purchases (by mass) have been elevated going back to ~2023.
Gold prices have also been on an upward trajectory ever since 2023 (https://goldprice.org/gold-price-history.html)
Whatever is happening now is bigger than actions over the last year.
Gold has always been stable, because it is physically limited.
It is the fiat currency debasement via unlimited money printing that makes the gold chart go up.
Imagine being in Zimbabwe or Weimar Germany and watching your stock portfolio and gold going up...
> Gold has always been stable, because it is physically limited.
Incorrect. Physical scarcity matters, but it’s not the main driver. Gold’s price is far more sensitive to interest rates, dollar strength, sentiment and fear, speculative flows.
The stability it’s historically shown was mostly the result of fixed monetary systems, and those are long gone.
its because you are measuring stable Gold in volatile fiat which is being printed every day depending on the factors you mentioned (interest rates, expectations of future growth, sentiment etc).
because you are getting paycheck in fiat, you are psychologically programmed to think of fiat as something stable, and Gold as volatile.
while in reality prices expressed in Gold ounces remained fairly stable for example: https://i.redd.it/1b5mfrqkxxef1.jpeg
The fact that this all happened by choice is really something.
It's like witnessing a self-decapitation.
America just experienced a leveraged buy out.
Not really. It has more to do with gold is now worth almost 3x what it was 2 years ago.
And before you get too excited, this "news" from the World Gold Council. A consortium of gold mining corporations. Clearly it's a pump article "have you bought gold yet? everyone else is! why not you!?!?"
Are you saying that the USA is doing just great and there is nothing for anyone to worry about?
Are you saying that the price of gold just spontaneously went up?
From over hear it seems like the age of Pax Americana is over, and gold at ~$4,600 is one of the results.
No, but it was due for a correction for a while now. That correction has sparked extra speculation because everything is gambling now.
Ofc those with an incentive of higher priced gold will tell to buy gold. Only time will tell if they were right.
It’s not a self decapitation exactly. I think Trump, his family, his corporate donors, and other friends are all willing to sacrifice everyone else - including the lead America had - to make themselves rich and powerful. Every single decision to spend - defense, ICE contracts, AI, approvals of anticompetitive acquisitions, changes to regulations, etc - is making that circle richer at our expense.
They don’t care if American supremacy is lost or if the dollar crashes or if the national debt becomes a crisis. As long as they have their wealth. The public is being decapitated, not them.
That's fair. I agree. I was thinking of the USA as one actor. The USA votes, or chooses not to, and that has effects.
True. In that sense the voters have self decapitated. I can’t understand how the Trump administration still has support from 40% of the country (per polls). I could understand voting for him due to some issue a voter has strong feelings about. But now we have seen it all play out and it’s a disaster leading to national ruin. And there is no talk of impeachment, trials, and accountability for everyone in his circle. So I guess that 40% does choose to self decapitate.
They don’t care when the media on am and talk radio, evangelical and mega churches, and all the conservative news tells them what to believe
Media that is never critical towards one side is what started all of this. A politician's kryptonite is when their voters find out that they lied or were hypocrites. That is a universal truth.
Single party media outlets like News Corp, Sinclair, Euronews, and so many others have broken that system entirely.
My test to see if someone is a shill/moron is to simply ask them to say one obvious bad thing about "their side." If they cannot, it becomes clear that they are not worth listening to.
What’s the worst thing, in your mind, about “your side”, assuming you have one.
> and all the conservative news tells them what to believe
And most traditional news is conservative now.
The idea that the mainstream media was ever leftest was always wrong, but these days its absolutely laughable and yet a lot of people still parrot this like it is the truth.
Weakening your own domain to get powerful sounds clearly contradictory, yet there are so many examples of elites doing exactly that despite the fact that doing so must've required foresight and planning elaborate enough to not blind them from the consequences.
How does sacrificing America's lead make American oligarchs richer? That doesn't even make sense.
basically make decisions that make no sense but benefit you financially. Sample. you run a printing business. you dont own it just run it. you sell your main printer and assign a performance bonus to your self. next month your business is closed because you dont have equipment to print, but you also have your bonus in pocket.
just like stock trader, you can get rich from going long, you also can get rich by shorting the economy (selling short).
this is what trump is doing: selling America short
The worst part is that I dont see a meaningful opposition to Trump.
if American political system allows President to do that and allows such President to be elected, than such system deserves to die.
If the value of gold goes up, doesn't this essentially help the US anyway? I believe our gold reservers are twice that of the closest country?
Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/gold-reserves
Too tired to write a novel like I usually would here, but we control the printing and, in large part, the distribution of USD. We don't control anything about gold. Then the USD was king, it entailed tremendous power and control in many ways beyond the obvious like the ability to try to kick people out of the 'global' economy. This is the not-so-secret purpose behind BRICS and dates back to issues starting in 1971.
I am actually convinced that the last year started the descent of the U.S. as the world’s super power. No wonder U.S. treasuries lost trust. It’s only going to get worse. It doesn’t matter what some billionaires do/get from their ability to manipulate some powers be. The rest of the investment community understands that free markets are strengthened by rule of law and adherence to the law and deploying a self styled socialistic distribution of economic capital is not signaling strength but weakness to the world.
People have been convinced of that my entire life, and I'm old now.
yes it takes multiple generations until empires collapse. even then there are remains left. usa will not disappear it will just become less relevant.
America really is in for a wake up call.
Why? Because gold bugs caused a gold bubble?
The federal government is. We'll see if the founders concept of a union of states is worth as much as it was proclaimed to be.
That’s interesting. Hadn’t thought of it that way. I can’t for the life of me figure out why more blue states aren’t taxing their wealthy occupants to cover the gap in lost federal funding from DOGE. If they were smart they would start stretching that muscle.
The union of states arrangement has the side effect of putting the states in competition with each other for things like new/expanding businesses and residents. It's relatively easy to relocate (or even remain in a state while legally "residing" elsewhere). So there are diminishing returns to raising the tax rates significantly on the upper brackets at the state level. I'm not a believer in the trickle down theory but beyond a certain marginal rate many people would just move to a state with a lower rate.
this somehow excludes such human concept as sense of belonging. might be in usa it has atrophied already but sense of home is really important in some places. place where you spend most of your life, where you have you real social network, neighbors and childhood friends. sometimes its lower tax is not worth loosing it all. its not everything about money (for some)
ps im talking about real persons here, not corporations