1/22/2026 at 6:06:29 PM
Macron is making up numbers. Unless the EU member states actually impose capital controls, investors will continue to send their capital wherever it can earn the highest returns. Profitable investment opportunities in the EU remain slim and so far they seem uninterested in pursuing a growth policy.by nradov
1/22/2026 at 6:19:57 PM
Politics drives decision making in addition to just seeking returns, especially for government affiliated funds, e.g.:https://www.reuters.com/business/swedish-pension-fund-alecta...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/danish-pension-fund-treasuries-...
(And remember that India and China combined reduced their holdings of US treasures by at least $50B in 2025: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/amid-global-... )
Canadian tourism visits to the US have dropped massively in the last year, not because Canadian tourist spots are better or more fun now (e.g. pure market forces), but again because of politics:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20251211-where-are-all-th...
by bhouston
1/22/2026 at 6:43:27 PM
The EU has $8T invested in US assets. That's not an easy choice like a soccer mom choosing to go to the Caribbean instead of Florida for a weekend. It's very serious business that needs real alternatives.by dmix
1/22/2026 at 10:47:17 PM
This is talk about not investing more in the US though, is it not? Why it the top discussion so misconstrued about what is being said/reality? €300B <> $8T, yet somehow that is the discussion?by _DeadFred_
1/22/2026 at 6:50:15 PM
As long as they lose less than they lose by keeping it in $ they're coming out ahead.by jacquesm
1/22/2026 at 7:46:58 PM
They don’t have a choice, they sell they get back dollars. What are they going to swap 8 trillion dollars into? And an even better question how?$8 trillion is about half the M3 of the Euro.
In fact there are only about 20 trillion dollars right now, there isn’t even enough liquidity to cash out.
by dogma1138
1/22/2026 at 8:52:57 PM
You definitely cannot do it all at once, all you can do is what China and India are doing, which is to slowly sell US treasuries over many years. China used to hold $1.3T of US treasuries but they now only hold just under $0.7T, thus about half has been sold. India similarly has reduced their holdings from $240B to $190 over the last year. It can be done, just not quickly.Stocks generally survive currency devaluations, but treasuries do not. So I am not a fan of treasuries in this environment, but US stocks should be fairly resistant except for their dependency on the US economy, which could be disrupted in a currency devaluation.
by bhouston
1/22/2026 at 9:09:45 PM
Both of them are doing it under pressure from the US to reduce how much debt they owe.Many of these securities do not have a secondary market that isn’t in the US. Push comes to shove the US can block a lot of these trades.
by dogma1138
1/22/2026 at 9:10:42 PM
> Push comes to shove the US can block a lot of these trades.If you really want to see a re-run of 1929 that would be the way to get it.
by jacquesm
1/22/2026 at 9:15:23 PM
> Both of them are doing it under pressure from the US to reduce how much debt they oweCitation please?
by bhouston
1/22/2026 at 8:22:27 PM
For one, they can stop feeding Microsoft and other American conglomerates and develop Free Software alternatives.by Gud
1/22/2026 at 8:44:21 PM
Ok, but that doesn’t answer the question how do you cash out on $8 trillion dollars and convert them into another currency.by dogma1138
1/22/2026 at 9:27:33 PM
You sell into the market and buy a replacement asset. Easy peasy. No need to sell all at once, you simply change your strategy to invest new capital elsewhere and slowly roll off existing debt ownership.Over time, the US will need to find someone willing to buy new US debt as existing buyers and holders invest elsewhere.
by toomuchtodo
1/22/2026 at 8:56:20 PM
India and China are buying gold: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/india-and-china-move.... Good time to be a gold bug.by bhouston
1/22/2026 at 10:09:17 PM
There's literally not enough gold in the world to make a difference at those scales. And while gold can serve as a (relatively) safe store of value, ultimately investors need to earn returns and holding gold has negative cash flow.by nradov
1/22/2026 at 9:10:50 PM
> What are they going to swap 8 trillion dollars into?For African raw materials, Chinese commodities and components, etc - like everybody else with lots of $$. If you're paying attention, that also means higher inflation in the US.
Thanks, GOP geniuses... of course the rich, of which the admin is full of, love inflation because it makes them richer. If you complain about something, they'd blame China and Maduro, mission accomplished!
by bigbadfeline
1/22/2026 at 9:37:15 PM
Those are thin markets, and not necessarily even open to most EU investors. Also, good luck getting your investment back when there's another coup or civil war in the target country.Major investors have always had some level of international diversification and that will continue. But this recent EU move won't have any significant impact.
by nradov
1/22/2026 at 10:52:28 PM
> Those are thin markets, and not necessarily even open to most EU investors... coup or civil war in the target country.I didn't say anything about "investing" in any closed markets or target countries. This isn't complicated but I'm sensing some entrenched and overly optimistic preconceptions getting in the way.
by bigbadfeline
1/23/2026 at 12:45:30 AM
It becomes complicated pretty quickly if you're trying to deploy large amounts of capital into small, unsophisticated markets regardless of whether you label it "investing" or something else. But you seem to be confused about how this stuff works in the real world.by nradov
1/23/2026 at 4:20:21 AM
[flagged]by bigbadfeline
1/22/2026 at 6:38:48 PM
Contrary to the implication, the Swedish fund that possibly sold $8b of its $100b worth of US Treasuries did not cite politics as its reason for doing so, and no part of the article backs up that claim. Additionally, selling out of the US dollar as the fed aimed to cut rates and as the dollar declined from historic highs against the Euro seems sensible regardless of politics.Denmark has been exiting foreign bonds for 10 years, down from a high of $24b in 2016 to $10b in 2025. It’s not only part of a trend, but the cited $100m of bonds sold makes up a negligible 0.00026% of US treasuries.
On that note, 1 USD buys nearly $1.40 CAD.
Politics makes it easy to write stories that paint an incomplete or incorrect picture.
by ilikehurdles
1/22/2026 at 6:46:55 PM
To be fair, the Swedish pension fund specifically cited the US's "large budget deficits and growing government debt" for why they saw it as higher risk. That sort of thing is 100% politicians.https://www.thestandard.com.hk/wealth-and-investment/article...
by dmix
1/22/2026 at 7:21:19 PM
The cited rationale is a perfectly reasonable take.But most of the world is in the same boat of "large budget deficits and growing government debt". It will be "interesting" for bond issuers and most investors and "exciting fishing" for hedge fund sharks over the next 10 years or so.
That said, I do not agree that it is 100% politicians. At least in the US, that path has been virtually unavoidable after the fiscal spending by G.W. Bush on the 9/11 wars and fully set in stone after 2008 subprime crisis. For the last 15+ years politicians could slow down or speed up the transit a little, but getting off that train has not been an option. My 2c.
by ptero
1/22/2026 at 7:24:48 PM
Its worse than you think: The United States is currently experiencing a massive, accelerating debt crisis, with the gross federal debt surpassing $38 trillion as of late 2025.It is growing by $1 trillion roughly every 82 days.
This debt level, which has exceeded 120% of the U.S. GDP,
by downrightmike
1/22/2026 at 8:49:45 PM
To be fair, the US has been growing its federal debt my whole life. It is one of those things that seems unsustainable but then it continues. Of course, it is sustainable because of US dollar dominance in the world and that may be faltering with Trump, especially if the Federal Reserve loses its independence.by bhouston
1/23/2026 at 6:13:02 AM
Every sentence here seems reasonable, weird to see it gray.I really do wonder what's going to end up happening with the debt...I think we've crossed the point of no return, but I'm not sure. Interest on the debt now exceeds military spending, and US military spending is about 40% of all NATO defense spending.
I've thought about this since I was young, and was fascinated that no one thought it was going to become a problem. There was a nice moment in the late 90s where the US reduced debt, but that was a blip.
by rpdillon
1/25/2026 at 9:24:36 PM
Hyperinflation is most likely, pay the debt with useless dollars. Other option is Debt Jubilee, which the Gov't would need to force lenders to write off the debt.All the petrodollar stuff seems like they are trying to keep the dollar valuable while it hyperinflates AKA knock everyone else's value down while being the most valuable even if it is like $1 trillion to $1 today
by downrightmike
1/22/2026 at 7:15:46 PM
Yeah politics or not, the US stock market has a very high exposure to just a couple tech companies, and many of these companies have a very high P/E, and likewise hugely invested in AI (which itself is a risk). Add to that the recent (entirely self-inflicted) geopolitical questions of US reliability, I think it's a smart idea to reduce US exposure in one's portfolio.Circling back to AI, my (not politically motivated) opinion, is that most of the tremendous supposed value was priced in into AI stock back in 2024, with 2025 gains being either relatively modest or stagnant. With the risks involved, I think it's fair to expect that AI companies can go down a lot, but it's hard to imagine them going up by that much.
Like, for example if NVIDIA gained another $1T in market cap, that'd increase the stock price by 22%, but if they lost that much, it would make it go down by 36%. If we consider both outcomes equally likely (not suggesting this is a reasonable assumption), we're more likely to lose money.
by torginus
1/22/2026 at 6:44:41 PM
>Contrary to the implication, the Swedish fund that possibly sold $8b of its $100b worth of US Treasuries did not cite politics as its reason for doing soWhich doesn't mean it wasn't the reason.
by Muromec
1/22/2026 at 6:55:23 PM
Maybe it was more because the president is a fool and less because he is a jerk?by ahartmetz
1/22/2026 at 6:47:15 PM
> 1 USD buys nearly $1.40 CAD.Right before Trump (2024), 1.42 CAD at the top. During Trump, barely hits 1.40 CAD, one time it touched 1.37 CAD.
by hello_moto
1/22/2026 at 6:39:01 PM
How much do EU government run funds invest in the US?by graemep
1/22/2026 at 8:35:08 PM
The governments can quiet easily influence private investment decisions by adding additional taxes to us-based market trades for example.It'd be quiet easy if the EU governments actually wanted to do so - I'm not sure they actually do right now, however.
by ffsm8
1/23/2026 at 3:36:26 PM
They can, but that invites retaliation. If they do it on all non-EU trades that is in effect an attack on investment in every non-EU economy. There are all sorts of consequences.There are practical difficulties too. What is the investments are made through an off-shore subsidiary or by investing in a fund in the US? It might even encourage the latter (single trade to buy the fund instead of managing US investments) and mean management fees move to the US.
If they impose it on just US trades it might still be subject to the problems above and would be a very serious step and one investors will hate.
I think we might well end up with something like this and a return to more money going to national capital markets rather than global, but its not going to be an easy transition.
by graemep
1/22/2026 at 6:21:13 PM
Unfortunately the US Dollar is devaluing. In the past year the dollar went down by 11%. That means SP 500 which has gone up 13% in the past year has only gone up 2% for a European.by abirch
1/22/2026 at 7:02:22 PM
The DXY dollar index:https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/.DXY?qsearchterm=dollar%20index
The big move down happened March-June.
by everybodyknows
1/22/2026 at 7:27:53 PM
Coincides with major tariff actions by the adminby ugh123
1/22/2026 at 7:38:14 PM
It's a matter of perspective, for the US administration, that 11% drop is reason for celebration.Their goal is to make American blue collar manufacturing jobs viable again, and part of the plan is to make it cheaper for other countries to buy their goods.
It's not the first time the dollar has been intentionally devalued.
by WarmWash
1/23/2026 at 4:36:07 AM
> Their goal is to make American blue collar manufacturing jobs viable again,It's one of many stated reasons.
What the real reasons are is not really important IMO. But my money would be on something much more sinister and selfish
by gizzlon
1/22/2026 at 7:09:41 PM
This means that from a European point of view, US investments are 11% cheaper.This could be attractive depending on your view of the future of the US dollar and US stock market.
by skybrian
1/22/2026 at 7:15:47 PM
Well no thanks, the US is going the same path Hungary and Turkey, just with a 10 year difference, autocrats are never good for business.As soon as Trump came in power I sold all my dollars and I was wise to do it.
Expect things to go much more worse from here, this is only the beginning. For now the FED has relatively been untouched, it's not going to stay pristine forever.
by realusername
1/23/2026 at 4:43:24 AM
yup, by going after Powell he is threatening the rest of them to vote the way he wants in the future.While it would be great if people of the US started to show some backbone and resist this fascist takeower, I'm quite pessimistic. What's going on makes me really sad.
OTOH it's not too late!! We have seen trends like this turned around before.
by gizzlon
1/23/2026 at 2:08:04 PM
The so-called “fascist takeover” is resisting you.by cmxch
1/22/2026 at 8:32:14 PM
Not if the European invested in currency hedged vanguard sp500sby yread
1/22/2026 at 6:27:56 PM
The fact that the EUR/U$S parity did not change much means EUR devaluated about the same, doesn’t it?by f1shy
1/22/2026 at 6:39:00 PM
EUR/USD increased ~13% in the past yearby nullhole
1/22/2026 at 6:36:11 PM
No the $ devalued against the euro by about 11% in the past 12 months. Look at a chart.by chairmansteve
1/22/2026 at 7:04:18 PM
False. Dollar has crashed against Euro.by victorbjorklund
1/22/2026 at 6:17:32 PM
> Unless the EU member states actually impose capital controls, investors will continue to send their capital wherever it can earn the highest returns.You don't need to introduce capital controls to make it unattractive to invest in the US. There are plenty of options that the EU could pull that would make investments abroad very unpopular quickly.
by the_mitsuhiko
1/22/2026 at 7:01:08 PM
Like how…?by baxtr
1/22/2026 at 7:06:18 PM
By taking inspiration from the US. The US has PFIC for instance and many other reporting requirements that make it more attractive to invest in the US than abroad.by the_mitsuhiko
1/22/2026 at 7:24:06 PM
Yea, but how?The EU can barely get the Mercosur FTA out the door. How can it even attempt to make such a drastic change that would make FDI in the EU less attractive than equally large and equally onerous China?
And that ignores the fact that states like Poland, Ireland, and Czechia would ferociously fight back at anything that threatens their FDI driven economies.
Even Ireland opposed the Anti-Coercion Instrument [0] four days ago, and everyone still remembers Belgium's unilateral opposition to seizing frozen Russian assets barely a month ago.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/be-no-doubt-eu-will-ret...
by alephnerd
1/22/2026 at 7:32:09 PM
That Europe is incapable of doing anything bold is a different topic. You don't have to tell me how fundamentally screwed we are because of the consensus issue. But Europe could, without introducing capital controls, implement something. The US did, there is no fundamental reason why Europe could not either.It's just a question of political will
by the_mitsuhiko
1/22/2026 at 7:36:32 PM
If something is hypothetically possible but practically impossible, then the mental exercise is a waste of time, and distracts from thinking about an actual solution.For example, Trump could impeached and removed from office, but that isn't happening. So what's the solution?
by alephnerd
1/22/2026 at 7:39:53 PM
I exclusively responded to a comment about capital controls, which are even less likely. I'm not particularly interested in a discussion about what politicans might or might not do.by the_mitsuhiko
1/22/2026 at 8:14:12 PM
I think if people were forced to invest their pensions in shitty EU stocks there would be push back. Also moving public sector pensions into EU stocks won't deliver the growth required, they are already unsustainable.by pipes
1/23/2026 at 8:35:37 AM
But there's a chicken and egg effect here in that the stock prices are low because of low investment and the stocks are bad because the stock prices are low.For instance, Meta has basically doubled in price from a few years back but their business is basically identical. Doesn't seem very efficient to me, at least.
by disgruntledphd2
1/27/2026 at 9:17:16 PM
I doubt that. Investment firms exist to find an edge. Any mispricing would be eventually exploited because the incentive to do so is so huge. That's what value investing is.by pipes
1/22/2026 at 6:18:56 PM
Those are capital controls by another name.by rwmj
1/22/2026 at 6:37:19 PM
but not necessarily capital controls by a similar legislative difficulty, although at this point it's somewhat abstract what is being discussed.by bryanrasmussen
1/22/2026 at 6:28:07 PM
No idea what this number actually is. If it includes pension funds' investments in the US stock market and US bonds, then it is underestimated.by kmac_
1/22/2026 at 6:21:03 PM
Counter argument: people invest in bonds. Quite a lot of bonds in fact.Picking up pennies in front of a steam roller and counterparty risk seem to be perennial favorites of youth, but I hazard to guess only a minority in the market have flesh yet untouched by fire.
by gogopromptless
1/22/2026 at 7:25:55 PM
> investors will continue to send their capital wherever it can earn the highest returnsMaybe. But they're allowed to avoid junk bonds and other "risky investments".
by ugh123
1/23/2026 at 12:59:50 AM
If American workers can properly organize general strikes then those investments look much less appealing.by hackable_sand
1/22/2026 at 9:02:53 PM
> Profitable investment opportunities in the EU remain slimIs this investment advice?
by tasuki
1/22/2026 at 10:21:36 PM
Yes. You should only invest in profitable opportunities.by nradov
1/23/2026 at 1:04:31 AM
This is presented axiomatically but it's trivially proven false.by hackable_sand
1/22/2026 at 7:22:53 PM
Similar thing to what the UK did post-Brexit?by downrightmike
1/22/2026 at 7:48:11 PM
Yes, but also no.Pension funds around these parts are big, we are often forced to pay into them. Years ago, I noticed they started advertising green funds. Would not be surprised to see options that exclude the US too.
If you look at Trumps polls across EU countries, it is heavily in the negative and a lot of us are wanting to put our money where our mouth is about it.
by pseudony
1/22/2026 at 7:50:22 PM
> Pension funds around these parts are bigNot really. Most EU countries don’t even have noticeable state pension funds (and one of the biggest culprits is actually France). They just rely on younger people to support the pensions of the retired ones.
by wtcactus
1/22/2026 at 8:14:16 PM
You're forgetting about private pension funds. Those are massive, and often mandated by a collective bargaining agreement.by crote
1/22/2026 at 8:25:08 PM
Not in France they aren’t. And not in most EU countries that still rely in pay as you go pension systems.For comparison. France’s pension funds (total public and private) are 12% of their GDP. Total EU pension funds are also around 20% of total EU GDP. USA pension funds are 170% of their GDP!!!
by wtcactus
1/22/2026 at 8:29:07 PM
It's not either-or, necessarily.Yes, we have a pays-as-you-go pension system in Denmark (sigh). But regulations were also changed a while back such that employees must pay into a pension scheme of their own. In our case, that's handled via your employer and there's a minimum contribution limit and often incentives to pay a higher level.
((not my area of expertise))
by pseudony
1/22/2026 at 6:11:14 PM
Maybe, but so does Trump. And that’s who these figures are really meant for.I doubt it will make any difference though, because Trump is about as brain damaged as they come.
by hnlmorg
1/22/2026 at 6:13:01 PM
Indeed it sounds a lot like Trump's bs, so Trump might buy it. It's almost like "those s**hole countries sending is their worst to eat our cats and dogs" or "subsidies we send every year to all over the world".by anovikov
1/22/2026 at 6:14:36 PM
Except in a floating exchange rate that isn’t what happens. For somebody to leave the Eurozone for the Dollar zone there has to be somebody coming in the opposite direction to exchange with.Macron is still talking nonsense of course. The Euros never left in the first place.
by neilwilson
1/22/2026 at 7:14:48 PM
> For somebody to leave the Eurozone for the Dollar zone there has to be somebody coming in the opposite direction to exchange with.Does that mean trade imbalances don’t exist?
by michaelt
1/23/2026 at 5:17:33 AM
Correct. They don’t. It’s an illusion caused by where the accounting boundary is drawn.That’s why “imbalances” never close.
If goods and services were exchanged for little models of the Eiffel Tower nobody would say there was an imbalance. Yet we do when we exchange for Euros.
by neilwilson
1/22/2026 at 6:18:14 PM
> Macron is making up numbersSo is Trump. This is all just response to bullying.
"I got big muscles"
"Oh yeah, I got big muscles too"
This all is happening because America elected a criminal clown, twice.
by nine_zeros
1/22/2026 at 6:36:04 PM
Let me fix that for you. This is all happening because the institutions in America failed to deliver for working-class people for over four decades, and Americans got fed up, elected a billionaire willing to be a bulldozer of those institutions and the systems that work for knowledge workers, twice.by godzillabrennus
1/22/2026 at 6:55:13 PM
And how does that work for them?by forty
1/22/2026 at 7:10:20 PM
Fantastic for my knowledge worker 401(k)!by throwawaypath
1/22/2026 at 11:46:39 PM
Who knew that cutting taxes while keeping government spending high AND lowering interest rates could result in so much free money going around? That coupled with the dollar losing 10% of its value in a year, of course stocks are higher than before. Inflation and dollar losing value = winning!by hypeatei
1/23/2026 at 12:23:39 AM
Oh, and, of course, a deficit is a tax increase that's deferred to the future.It's one thing to spend a deficit on something long-term useful, it's another thing to piss it away.
by vkou
1/23/2026 at 4:45:27 PM
>Who knew that cutting taxes while keeping government spending high AND lowering interest rates could result in so much free money going around?That's been going on for many presidents in a row, in no way unique to Trump. Bush and Obama take the cake.
>That coupled with the dollar losing 10% of its value in a year
Is this some new virtue signal on BlueSky? USD is still trading in its channel at above historic averages. This is like saying the US market is crashing because we had a -2.5% day on Tuesday. Look at DXY and zoom out. It's been flat since May.
>of course stocks are higher than before. Inflation and dollar losing value = winning!
Three consecutive years of solid double digit market growth that has outpaced inflation and dollar valuation. Tell me you know nothing about financial markets without telling me you know nothing about financial markets.
by throwawaypath
1/23/2026 at 10:52:14 PM
> That's been going on for many presidents in a rowYou were attributing your "knowledge worker 401(k)" growth to Trump though?
> Is this some new virtue signal on BlueSky?
No, I'm not on BlueSky or any social media. Is this a poor attempt at some Trumper "own"?
> USD is still trading in its channel at above historic averages.
Look at the chart after "liberation day" in April. It's been down since then and stayed there. Not a very good sign for his policies.
> Three consecutive years of solid double digit market growth that has outpaced inflation and dollar valuation
I agree, Biden did well with covid recovery. Not sure how electing Trump did much for us other than cause a market crash in April (and subsequent dip buying) and weaken the USD?
> Tell me you know nothing about financial markets
Oh, I know plenty and I'm actually bullish on stocks because there is so much free money going around. It would be stupid not to have your money in assets with such high inflation on the horizon. I just find it funny that you're touting bad policy as a win when his whole campaign was about "Biden's inflation" causing high prices and Republicans are supposedly for being fiscally responsible yet the OBBB goes against that.
by hypeatei
2/3/2026 at 5:06:10 PM
>You were attributing your "knowledge worker 401(k)" growth to Trump though?You were attributing the "cutting taxes while keeping government spending high AND lowering interest rates" specifically to Trump though?
>No, I'm not on BlueSky or any social media.
Yet you suffer from the same brainrot.
>Is this a poor attempt at some Trumper "own"?
Is this a poor attempt at some pantifa "own"?
>Look at the chart after "liberation day" in April. It's been down since then and stayed there. Not a very good sign for his policies.
Yes, it is still trading in its channel at above historic averages. A regression to the mean, the same drop happened under Biden in 2022. Not a good sign for [Biden's] policies.
>Not sure how electing Trump did much for us other than cause a market crash in April (and subsequent dip buying) and weaken the USD?
Of course you're not sure because you're financially illiterate. We're hitting all time highs again.
>Oh, I know plenty and I'm actually bullish on stocks because there is so much free money going around.
ZIRP is over. You're bullish because the market is hitting ATH under Trump. I've been selling puts all year to gullible "investors" that thought, and still think, the market is going to crash, any time now, under Trump.
>It would be stupid not to have your money in assets with such high inflation on the horizon.
"Inflation is on the horizon!" they screamed for an entire year. Trump's first year of his second term CPI was 2.7%, lower than any Biden year.
>I just find it funny that you're touting bad policy as a win when his whole campaign was about "Biden's inflation" causing high prices and Republicans are supposedly for being fiscally responsible yet the OBBB goes against that.
People find things they don't understand funny, news at 11.
by throwawaypath
1/22/2026 at 7:01:29 PM
American voters elected the people who ran those institutions, or appointed the leaders of those institutions.I know we all want it to be some shadowy cabal so we can pretend the average person didn't cause this, but it isn't. We did this to ourselves.
by wat10000
1/22/2026 at 6:51:51 PM
All politicians will say what people want to hear.by hello_moto
1/22/2026 at 7:24:26 PM
> Let me fix that for you. This is all happening because the institutions in America failed to deliver for working-class people for over four decades, and Americans got fed up, elected a billionaire willing to be a bulldozer of those institutions and the systems that work for knowledge workers, twice.Let me fix that for you. Billionaires conned working class into giving up everything for "low taxes". Working class suffered.
And then the same working class elected - get this - another billionaire conman - the same category that previously conned them.
by nine_zeros
1/22/2026 at 6:20:42 PM
[flagged]by TacticalCoder
1/22/2026 at 7:07:58 PM
> The only reason the IMF hasn't taken the reins of France yet is because France has the nuclear weapon and is the only country in the eurozone to have it, so they have some leverage with the other countries in the eurozone.First of all IMF has nothing to do with the Eurozone. And second of all, we are Europeans. We don’t threaten to bomb our neighbors if they don’t give us what we want. That’s just a Russian/American thing.
by victorbjorklund
1/22/2026 at 7:18:13 PM
Only for the past 70 years. Before that europeans were the bomb-lobbing record holders.by matthewaveryusa
1/22/2026 at 7:26:11 PM
Yes, that is true. In the past we were primitive like Russians/Americans.by victorbjorklund
1/22/2026 at 7:36:19 PM
The EU being our peace project, which both Russia and the US now want to undo.by rapnie
1/22/2026 at 6:32:51 PM
How many percentage of GDP is healthcare in the US? 10, 20%?Healthcare is almost entirely public in France (pension also mostly are), so I'm not sure that your comparison makes sense.
by savant2
1/22/2026 at 6:50:15 PM
Healthcare is about 17% in the US GDP and 30% of the federal budget. The US spends more on public healthcare as a % of GDP than almost all European countries, including France which spends about 12% of GDP on healthcare.by dmix
1/22/2026 at 6:50:48 PM
It's hard to get a comparable read since you don't get a clean split in the #s between what would be public spending vs. private spending if the US + a "Medicare for All" type system, but including the % of GDP spent in US on healthcare overall, it would put government expenditures as % of GDP on par with most other countries in the world that do provide universal health care:* https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/... * https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...
France certainly has a higher % of expenditure to GDP than other comparable countries, and you would expect the USA health care to GDP % to decline to be more inline with other countries with universal coverage if a national program was introduced.
However, because France is still offering more public social services and benefits overall vs. a "USA + universal health" that it's hard to make broad claims either way about who is wasting more money or which system is more effective for citizens based purely on % of government expenditure to total GDP.
by cayleyh
1/22/2026 at 6:26:26 PM
meanwhile 6-week vacations, high speed trains, walkable cities, generous child benefits, and, well, quality of life salute you from hereby lejalv
1/22/2026 at 6:34:44 PM
All great things for sure. But the French economy has been stagnant for decades. There is no growth. One option would be to allow more immigration, but not allow the immigrants to have access to the public benefits. Obviously that is a divisive political issue they struggle badly with.by petcat
1/22/2026 at 6:46:26 PM
> the French economy has been stagnant for decades. There is no growth.This is one of the biggest reasons why it is trivially easy for USA, China, and Russia to squeeze them (and the whole EU) from all sides.
by VWWHFSfQ
1/22/2026 at 6:42:16 PM
The issue is a lot of French people in the private sector (small businesses, contractors etc.) actually work really hard and often long hours to subsidise public sector employees barely working and retiring at 55.At the end of the day, that just isn't sustainable politically and it's pretty questionable if it's morally correct either
by ifwinterco
1/22/2026 at 7:42:33 PM
6 week vacation?Europe has been on a 30 year vacation, and it's starting to look like that vacation might need to end.
by WarmWash
1/22/2026 at 6:45:10 PM
At some point the money runs out for all of that stuff, it seems that in France that's just about to happen.by paganel
1/22/2026 at 6:32:01 PM
One thing I remember from civics class: governments should think in terms of generations; not profits/losses.by withinboredom
1/22/2026 at 6:41:04 PM
That's true, but you have to actually be investing in growth for it to come up. Instead the next generation will get both spiriling interest payments and crumbling infrastructure.by thatguy0900
1/22/2026 at 6:32:22 PM
> The only reason the IMF hasn't taken the reins of France yet is because France has the nuclear weapon and is the only country in the eurozone to have it, so they have some leverage with the other countries in the eurozone.Haha, what? How is France having nuclear weapons leverage over other countries in the Eurozone? What kind of thing do you think the Eurozone or EU even is? We don't use threats of violence against each other in negotiations. France having nuclear weapons or not matters zilch in these conversations, because we're all allies.
by embedding-shape
1/22/2026 at 6:45:26 PM
I took it to mean more that europe relies on France for nuclear deterrence against outside threats so treats them with gentle gloves more than Europe is afraid of France nuking them. Right now more than ever they really need someone with nukes on their side.by thatguy0900
1/22/2026 at 7:01:21 PM
> I took it to mean more that europe relies on France for nuclear deterrence against outside threatsYeah, that tracks, re-reading with that interpretation makes it make a whole lot more sense than what I understood at first reading. Thanks a lot for helping me understanding it better!
by embedding-shape
1/22/2026 at 7:05:49 PM
> Haha, what? How is France having nuclear weapons leverage over other countries in the Eurozone? What kind of thing do you think the Eurozone or EU even is? We don't use threats of violence against each other in negotiations. France having nuclear weapons or not matters zilch in these conversations, because we're all allies.Greece says hello!
by charamis
1/22/2026 at 7:09:07 PM
... did I miss something? I know there is plenty of financial and institutional coercion, don't get me wrong, but violent threats between nations within the Eurozone? When did that happen / what are you referencing?by embedding-shape
1/22/2026 at 6:33:15 PM
Well they're right: The IMF routinely takes over countries that have too much debt, but it hasn't done this to France.by direwolf20
1/22/2026 at 7:09:26 PM
The IMF usually only gets involved in policy when countries borrow money from them. So far, France has not had to request such aid.by shmeeed
1/22/2026 at 7:05:11 PM
Which ones?by wat10000
1/22/2026 at 7:10:05 PM
> How is France having nuclear weapons leverage over other countries in the Eurozone?If there's one thing a bank is scared of, it's getting nuked. /s
by triceratops
1/22/2026 at 6:50:05 PM
Isn't the US running a deficit of 5.8% of their GDP as well?by soperj
1/22/2026 at 7:17:11 PM
I think the issue here is that France can't print more euros to cover it, other countries have to cover it since they share currency they are all responsible for the debtby thatguy0900