In theory that sounds nice, but I suspect it would be much harder to make work in practice than it seems

Central banks often hold gold on their books at very old prices

I think the confusion is that both statements can be true depending on what you mean by "gain"

The article isn't saying they magically created value out of nowhere

The whole of international politics is the real rules vs the unwritten rules.

Goes for local politics as well.

Sounds like corporate politics too!

Feels like one of those stories where the headline makes it sound geopolitical, but the details are mostly about accounting and logistics

Yes and no. Even though the use of USD as reserve has been falling globally over time, there are a lot of news articles showing up on this site lately about divestment in USD.

So on the surface level this is politics in the sense that it marks the end of a long process between two countries.

Deeper, it is very political in that some entity wants to normalize and for us to be thinking a lot about the future of American isolationism.

If you can make 60B and occasionally pay a few hundred million in fines, the math kind of answers itself

I think the difference is scale and targeting

I get the frustration, but I think it's worth separating two things: failing at moderation vs pushing for stricter identity controls