# Readers of Der Spiegel comment:Those sneaky Americans just can't be trusted. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 17, 2013, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480 "2013-01-17T07:00:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/21 "2013-01-17T19:46:50Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > Even though Der Spiegel is a respectable publication, please do not take the comments on the articles as a representative sample of the German psyche. Otherwise I shall be forced to equate the US with the YouTube comment section and Yahoo! Answers. _\_ Well, perhaps you _should_. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/22 "2013-01-17T19:53:19Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > On a side note, Der Spiegel may be respectable, but I’ve found it to be more pretentious than deep. Whenever commenting on international affairs. To the extent that I understand things, I usually consider its analysese to be shallow, self-important, and usually ignorant. It aspires to be Time, but manages to be Newsweek. Certainly, the editors do not seem to like America or Americans, although it’s not so much any specific issue as the general distaste of elite Western European opinion-makers. I disagree with some of this. Der Spiegel, itself, I think is admirably more comprehensive than any American weekly; each issue is well over 100 pages and covers numerous topics that don’t normally fit into Time or Newsweek. I haven’t seen a physical copy in years, but I believe the typical content and article length of the magazine is far more extensive than that of the free online version. In terms of geopolitics, I tend to agree with its opinions more often than not. No, I’ve got no beef with Der Spiegel nor with the way this story has been reported. Nor with Germans and Germany generally. This is only about the reader’s opinions I quoted, which remind me of something Rush Limbaugh or Fox News fans would write. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/23 "2013-01-17T20:19:39Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > _\_ > > Well, perhaps you _should_. Your anti-Americanism has become tiresome. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/24 "2013-01-17T20:36:56Z")
Well, it IS almost Springtime… ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/25 "2013-01-17T20:41:29Z")
> [@JeffB](#): > > I just checked the FedEx website. The cost for shipping 2,000 pounds from NY to Frankfurt is $16,962 (Priority) or $11,352 (Economy), assuming FedEx pickup. You can get it slightly cheaper if you drop it off yourself. So somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 - $10 million. Prior approval required for shipping over 2,200 pounds. This would be by air, correct? If so I can see that would obviously be the best way to do it, although the Germans might naturally prefer to use one of their own carriers. For some reason I’d assumed it would be done by sea, which I now see would be a highly risky choice. Generally speaking it sounds like a logistical nightmare, though. It’s a battle between the need for security and the desire for inconspicuousness. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/26 "2013-01-17T20:47:01Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Actually, there is a reason not to: they’re a decent chance they’ll have to turn around and send it back in a few years. Why would they need to do this? Remember, the Germans don’t want to take all of their gold home; a considerable portion would remain in NYC, presumably enough to support all of their market activities there. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/27 "2013-01-17T22:16:33Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Why would they need to do this? Remember, the Germans don’t want to take all of their gold home; a considerable portion would remain in NYC, presumably enough to support all of their market activities there. Granted, I’m not 100% sure we really need the depository, but the entire move is sorta pointless even on its own terms. (1) If they don’t intend to use it, there’s no point in having it whatsoever. They may as well sell the excess. (2) If they don’t intend to sell it, then keeping it at home also serves no purpose. They’re just keeping a giant pile of gold in a slightly different place. Granted, it may allow Angela Merkel to nest on her treasure hoard while hissing softly about her growing domination of Europe, and how that nasty Baggins won’t get her Arkenstone, but I don’t really see any major point to it.\* \*I don’t dislike Merkel. I jsut think it’s fun to poke at her, being a major world leader and in a rather unenviable position of being both made powerful by the EU, and simultaneously having to find a way to donate massive public aid which maybe stands a 50/50 chance of actually keeping the EU going, and may cause ongoing damage to the entire Euro-Zone. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/28 "2013-01-17T22:19:07Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Gold is clearly one of the deadliest substances known to humanity; it can cause brain damage by heavy metal poisoning all the way across the ocean. Then we’re far worse off in this country as we have more. We should give them our own gold as well! ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/29 "2013-01-17T22:58:27Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > All the gold is piled into the vault, clearly laid out for different countries. When one country makes a transfer to another country, someone goes down and moves it from one place to another. Why bother getting a forklift and moving blocks of gold to another shelf when you can just send a guy with a clipboard to move the paper labels that say “Germany” or “France” or “Cayman Islands” or “The Jews”? And in fact, they hardly ever move the gold bars around and instead just keep track of which entity owns which stack. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/30 "2013-01-17T22:58:37Z")
Wait a second. I saw a documentary about this. It was a German, Simon Peter Gruber (brother of Hans) that stole the gold from the NY Federal Reserve vault. What kind of Shenanigans are they trying to pull? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/31 "2013-01-17T23:48:28Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Why bother getting a forklift and moving blocks of gold to another shelf when you can just send a guy with a clipboard to move the paper labels that say “Germany” or “France” or “Cayman Islands” or “The Jews”? This is what I thought they did, but I think actually moving the gold around within the warehouse, as described by **Khadaji** above. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/32 "2013-01-18T02:57:31Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > This is what I thought they did, but I think actually moving the gold around within the warehouse, as described by **Khadaji** above. …is more practical for a variety of reasons (I meant to say). The physical pile of gold in the space reserved for “Germany”, “France” or whichever country is its own proof of being the correct amount. With clipboards and labels there’s just too much chance of unwarranted, undocumented transfers taking place. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/33 "2013-01-18T15:20:54Z")
Either way, the important thing is that the Fed knows how much everybody has, and that they agree with the aforementioned countries’ count. Not sure how they handle it, but moving a stack in and of itself isn’t a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Doughbag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Doughbag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doughbag)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/34 "2013-01-18T17:18:41Z")
Wow…, the next stupid accusation will be that the Germans worked with the government together to bring down the two towers on 9/11 and secretly are the people behind the Ku Klux Khan and Obama is running the USA secretly for the Germans. BTW, the Polish invasion is happening next week on Hitlers birthday, so stock up on those rations – the US is next. Death to the impure Untermenschen :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/35 "2013-01-18T18:01:49Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > Even though Der Spiegel is a respectable publication, please do not take the comments on the articles as a representative sample of the German psyche. Otherwise I shall be forced to equate the US with the YouTube comment section and Yahoo! Answers. I was under the impression that Der Spiegel was a fairly serious pop news journal\*, like TIME or Newsweek. Both have their share of stupid reader comments, but nothing like YouTube (which has commentators from all over, I might add). \*Yes, I made up this description. I think I’ll keep it. ---
**Author:** ![Doughbag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Doughbag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doughbag)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/36 "2013-01-18T18:23:31Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I was under the impression that Der Spiegel was a fairly serious pop news journal\*, like TIME or Newsweek. Both have their share of stupid reader comments, but nothing like YouTube (which has commentators from all over, I might add). > > \*Yes, I made up this description. I think I’ll keep it. The comments in questions where made on the Spiegel Blog, by a few readers - not the news paper itself. The original report by Der Spiegel just mentioned the fact, that Germany whats to collect some of German gold from the US. It’s just a freaking BLOG … not every German possessing an computer with access to the internet speaks for the nation or the government :smack ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/37 "2013-01-18T18:46:44Z")
Perhaps you should read my post before responding to it. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/38 "2013-01-18T19:25:42Z")
> [@Doughbag](#): > > The comments in questions where made on the Spiegel Blog, by a few readers - not the news paper itself. The original report by Der Spiegel just mentioned the fact, that Germany whats to collect some of German gold from the US. > > It’s just a freaking BLOG … not every German possessing an computer with access to the internet speaks for the nation or the government :smack I did say in the OP that I understand it’s not the magazine itself that wrote those comments. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/39 "2013-01-18T19:32:16Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I was under the impression that Der Spiegel was a fairly serious pop news journal\*, like TIME or Newsweek. Both have their share of stupid reader comments, but nothing like YouTube (which has commentators from all over, I might add). For that matter, neither do you have to be in Germany to post comments on Der Spiegel’s website. I know for a fact that at least one of the commentators on the article I linked to isn’t German. (Don’t bother looking because I don’t use the same user name; on the other hand, I imagine that my posts contain some slight errors in grammar and peculiarities of usage that will betray their foreign origin to native speakers.) ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480/40 "2013-01-19T00:22:47Z")
> [@Doughbag](#): > > BTW, the Polish invasion is happening next week on Hitlers birthday… With Global Warming that’s pretty much Spring and the whole country will be mud. You guys got it right the last time you invaded Poland, but unlike the USSR, Poland is small so there’s no need to get an early start. Wait until June. Better yet, just buy the damned country; you can afford it. Keep your plans secret from the Russians so you don’t get into a bidding war and you’ll have all that pork and hot Polish chicks to yourselves. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/readers-of-der-spiegel-comment-those-sneaky-americans-just-cant-be-trusted/647480.md?page=3)