The transfer was carried out partially by buying and selling and partly by physically transferring gold, the Dutch national bank said.

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[–] 13 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Why stop at the UK? Feels like they're teetering on the edge.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    Because keeping your strategic reserves in your own country kinda defeats the purpose, and we don't have allies further west than the UK, on account of there not being any more land there.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    Do you feel like France or Germany would be too close/too involved in a potential of conflict to be safe?

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  • [–] 9 points 4 days ago

    It comes down to how likely it is.

    The likelyhood of the Netherlands being invaded, but not germany or france, is a lot smaller than the Netherlands being invaded but not the UK.

    Because lets be real, if anyone is going to be attacking Europe, it'll be Russia, and they won't be coming via the sea.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago* (2 children)

    If you think the UK isn't politically stable you've just been watching too much fox news.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    After Brexit and the UK following in the footsteps of just about every shitty thing the US does, I don't see how one could call them stable.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago

    Farage, Boris... There are ugly undercurrents in British society and culture. I am throwing stones with sin here, because my country also struggles against those cuntdicks, but I've been there many times so I'm not speaking out of turn.

    Let's keep in mind that Putin has been funding right wing extremism and fanned polarity in Europe for the better part of three decades now. It shows.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    Then again, how come your PMs only last an average of 6 months on the job before they get kicked out and are replaced before the replacement leaves in 6 months.

    Lettuce woman springs to mind, but holy shit.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (1 child)

    That's just how the UK political system is, it's not a sign of instability. We really do need to change our truly broken political system but that's more about fairness and an actual representative government, than it is protecting us from from fascism.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago* (1 child)

    But that is a clear sign of instability, my man. I'm from Europe so I know what's up, and GB has been in turmoil since Thatcher. In fact you're Europe's USA as far as I'm concerned- you're basically OG USA really... I love the people, but you're still dealing with your colonial past and the structures of its old institutions still governing you.

    You're also a bunch of mad lads so I have hope for you.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    No it's since the 2008 crash. We fucked up our response to that. Austerity made everything worse. Immigrants and foreigners somehow get blamed for the state of things, and thus Brexit. Which again made everything worse still. All wrapped in 14y of bad Conservative government. Increasing corruption as it gets normalized. Labour has their work cut out for them, or it will be the far right next. (Because the right haven't done enough damage yet?)

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (2 children)

    Ooh, do tell - what's happening over here that I've missed?

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  • [–] 4 points 5 days ago* (3 children)

    The UK is sleepwalking towards fascism. Same as France and Germany. Not that the left isn't fighting tooth and nail against it but there is still a very strong pull towards authoritarian right wing politics and moderate centrists are not ready to stop licking oligarch boots.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    I don't know where you're getting this view from. Of course this right wing extremists, there always has been, but they're no more likely to achieve power now than they were 10 years ago. If anything trump's antics have brought their behavior into sharp relief. Since everyone can see how much of a disaster and extremist right-wing government would now be, because they're all exactly like Trump.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    I'm getting this view from the opinion polls that show the AfD ahead and LePen beating Mélenchon in the second round. And even though Burnham seems to enjoy a boost bringing him slightly ahead of Farage, this is the honeymoon period and I don't believe that he will break enough establishment eggs in a left populist direction to reverse the longer term trend.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago* (1 child)

    The longer term trend being that the right-wing parties are ripping themselves apart you mean? You should watch some UK news, your information is quite out of date.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    I wish that was true. So Greens just won Dover, "yeah!" except..... if you add up the right parties, it is over 50%. So it's not actually good news. Plus there is still more left parties for the vote to be split over.

    I just hope the right can't consolidate, and that in fact anyone remotely sane on the right goes LibDem rather aligned at all with fascists.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (1 child)

    As in vulture capitalism, or something else.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    As in the money in the UK is not freely flowing through the real economy, the one where money has a healthy velocity (eg the same pound flows from the carpenter to the baker to the electrician to the cafe worker and leaves everyone involved enriched by goods and services)

    Instead, the lion share of the money is tied up in London playing games with math. It's not even investments that create more economic activities... It's just making money on paper

    It means that while the GDP looks good on paper, the velocity of money continues to drop and the real economy is being starved

    It's also a severe problem in the US, but long story short, when the US economy pops the UK economy is going to also be thrown into chaos

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