this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
79 points (93.4% liked)

politics

21970 readers
4155 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 97 points 1 week ago (9 children)

In February, he said the government could “monetize the US balance sheet for the American people.”

One way to do this would be to revalue America’s gold reserves.

The US still prices its gold reserves at $42.22 an ounce.

If revalued to the market price of around $2,900, it could create nearly $900 billion in new equity overnight.

This would give the government a new pool of capital without borrowing more money or printing dollars.

Other assets, including federal land, real estate, infrastructure, and even confiscated cryptocurrency, could also be used.

The logic is clear: the US owns trillions in untapped assets but still runs massive deficits.

They want to put federal land up as collateral for loans. Instead of just issuing debt in the government's name, they want to get lower interest rates by putting up US land as collateral. And when they manage the government right into default, the bankers will take possession of all national parks and federal land. That's what 'monetize' means. It means put up as collateral.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (7 children)

What bank in their right mind is going to take that bet? They'd be gambling that when the government defaults, we wouldn't have some ass-clown in office with a penchant for welching on contracts.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 week ago (6 children)

You're looking at it backwards:

They're going to give public lands to themselves and their friends with this mechanism.

[–] potatopotato 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

The problem is there's a very real risk the American people will view the move as illegitimate and prevent the land from being taken in the future, ie under a new admin that jails trump or something. The point of collateral is to reduce risks, not introduce new and exciting ones. Nobody is going to accept lower rates on this unless the aforementioned quid pro quo is real, in which case the deal is already illegal and the downside risks now include prison.

Yes this is idealistic, but the threat is still real and that's how finance people calculate interest.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

If we had an opposition party that wasn't comatose, it would be announcing that any debt purchased under this scheme would not be honored once Trump is out of office.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What the hell is a bank going to do with Yosemite National Park?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Imagine Yosemite National Park.....with an HOA!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Raise ticket prices to. $180 pp, build a hotel and conference center, install a theme park, cobalt mining.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)