171–180 of 216 posts
If like me you are wondering why the sunglasses, it looks like he is using that to mask an eye infection. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-emman...
Probably just a broken blood vessel in the eye.
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Ok, but that doesn’t answer the question how do you cash out on $8 trillion dollars and convert them into another currency.
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.
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.
> Profitable investment opportunities in the EU remain slim Is this investment advice?
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Even the poorest EU countries are actually surprisingly wealthy. Bulgaria was switching to Euro on the new year’s eve and the easiest way to convert Leva to Euro was to put the money into the bank, so Bulgarian deposits reached 100B+ levas into personal accounts by November which converts to ~50B+ Euros. Which is over 10K Euros per Bulgarian adult. Not bad for the poorest country, considering that home ownership rate…
Home ownership can be a deceptive stat in Eastern Europe - many people don't register their address at the place they rent - in part because they're renting it under the table. Tons of folks also live with their parents into their 30s.
When people talk about EU home ownership, savings, etc. they often neglect to mention the skew of the Boomer class. It really sucks for young people.
TIL EU savings rate is far more than US. 18.79% vs 3.50% Guessing that's somehow counting enforced deductions off paycheques. Would be a wild difference if not. https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/personal-savings https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-savings
The Europeans I know seem to save in actual bank savings accounts, whereas the Americans I know seem to invest their money. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but I can't find a description of "savings" on those charts, so I think it might be ignoring American investments. To me, they are both types of investment, one a super safe option with a low return, and the other a more risky option with a higher return. From…
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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-...…
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.
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> 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, mis…
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.
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.
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The US can always print more money to fund its institutions, but other countries have to save theirs. Sure, they can print more euro but when so much stuff they need is traded in USD, that's not nearly as effective as when the US prints more USD.
> The US can always print more money to fund its institutions, but other countries have to save theirs. That only works if there are takers for US bonds otherwise all this will do is devalue the USD.
TIL EU savings rate is far more than US. 18.79% vs 3.50% Guessing that's somehow counting enforced deductions off paycheques. Would be a wild difference if not. https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/personal-savings https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-savings
This doesn't surprise me at all as an European. My mind struggles to understand how so many Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
> In 2023, 54 percent of adults said they had set aside money for three months of expenses in an emergency savings or “rainy day” fund—unchanged from 2022 but down from a high of 59 percent of adults in 2021.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2023-repor...
via
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-five-...
TIL EU savings rate is far more than US. 18.79% vs 3.50% Guessing that's somehow counting enforced deductions off paycheques. Would be a wild difference if not. https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/personal-savings https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-savings
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/inter/date/2024/html/ecb.in2...
see also https://archive.md/xaiLU
"Europe’s AI ambitions are running into a markets plumbing problem
The region lacks the depth of long-dated investment capital needed to fund required energy infrastructure"