281–290 of 297 posts
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If education is welfare then so is everything. Defence is welfare becuase before you might have to hire private security. Police and fire serviecs are welfare because they used to be private. etc....
Yes, education is welfare. I'm not sure how anyone could possibly argue otherwise...
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If you had a Rawlsian veil pulled over your eyes and someone said to you "You won't know how rich you will be in that society, but would you rather live in a top ten GDP per Capita country or a bottom ten?" I think we all know what we would reply. Granted it might not be fine grained enough to distinguish between Number 4 and Number 5 on the list.
Might still be a useless indicator considering that many of the low GDP countries also rank badly in other indicators that are often taken into consideration more broadly, like quality of life indicies, corruption indices or just the Gini coefficient. Correlation does not mean causation
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Because the SP500 is a better indicator of the market than USD. Also if you look at the global dollar index, it is right at par historically. The companies in the 500 are mostly global companies, if the USD shrunk so much they would either be losing money, or it doesn't matter because the US market is so strong it dwarfs the others.
> The companies in the 500 are mostly global companies Isn't that saying exactly what the parent comment mentioned? Since those companies are global, the growth of the S&P 500 which is USD denominated will track the devaluation of the USD as the underlying companies haven't lost value, the dollar has, and the S&P 500 would track that as growth in percentage to balance it. I don't understand why they would be losing m…
This is clearly the USD Global index dropping a few basis points, which is an active strategy. Look at the USD Index over 15 year period, there is nothing wrong with USD today.
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I noticed this as well. I haven’t found a good cure for this other than diversifying globally.
I could be misunderstanding this, but you know that you can buy ETFs that are currency hedged? Taking Vanguard for example, VGS is global equities, but VGAD is global equities that are AUD-hedged (my home country). The only downside is that you pay more in fees (and they're less tax efficient). People generally don't bother with it though, because on a long enough time-line currencies usually revert to their long-ter…
On the other hand, my expenses will also be in US dollars. To what degree should I hedge against the dollar?
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I could be misunderstanding this, but you know that you can buy ETFs that are currency hedged? Taking Vanguard for example, VGS is global equities, but VGAD is global equities that are AUD-hedged (my home country). The only downside is that you pay more in fees (and they're less tax efficient). People generally don't bother with it though, because on a long enough time-line currencies usually revert to their long-ter…
Let's say I'm close to retirement. And let's say I'm in US dollars, and the dollar isn't doing well right now, and might continue to not do well for a long enough time frame to matter to me. On the other hand, my expenses will also be in US dollars. To what degree should I hedge against the dollar?
Ultimately the point of hedging is to diversify. So the degree you should hedge is relative to the degree with which you have exposure to your home currency. So for example, if you already own a home in that country + you already own lots of shares in that home currency, then hedging might be less important.
The recommendation I've seen is around 25% of your portfolio in hedged global equities, assuming you have another 25-30% in non-hedged global equities.
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I could be misunderstanding this, but you know that you can buy ETFs that are currency hedged? Taking Vanguard for example, VGS is global equities, but VGAD is global equities that are AUD-hedged (my home country). The only downside is that you pay more in fees (and they're less tax efficient). People generally don't bother with it though, because on a long enough time-line currencies usually revert to their long-ter…
TIL: currency moves have zero expected return
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I could be misunderstanding this, but you know that you can buy ETFs that are currency hedged? Taking Vanguard for example, VGS is global equities, but VGAD is global equities that are AUD-hedged (my home country). The only downside is that you pay more in fees (and they're less tax efficient). People generally don't bother with it though, because on a long enough time-line currencies usually revert to their long-ter…
> The only downside is that you pay more in fees This is a _huge_ downside for index funds, though. Even quite a small fee difference has a huge compounding impact over time; people often miss just how much. AIUI, assuming you're investing in a global equity fund, currency hedging is almost never worth it. It _may_ be worth it in some cases if you're investing in a foreign index (eg S&P for Europeans), but even then…
Hedging is all about diversification at the end of the day. So it makes sense to hedge if you're coming close to retirement age.
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Yeah but it wasn’t the unelected bureaucrats that fucked the EU. It was the German attitude towards debt and the redistribution of surplus. The Eurogroup sheepishly followed whatever Austerity fever dream of Schauble, tanked the Greek economy to teach every other Med country a lesson and by doing so, crippled any chance of post 2009 recovery
The euro group did not follow austerity measures. Italy's debt has ballooned to 150% of it's GDP, France is heading for 130% in the near future. Whatever happened in the EU, was not Germany's responsibility. Even Greece's debt is way higher than it should be after the Euro zone austerity "cure". If there had been real austerity and real slashing of the national budgets so that all countries of the euro-zone actually…
If you cripple the gdp through austerity policies (killing borrowing to chase the “responsibility dream”) the fiscal multiplier becomes a ruinous curse.
Of course, pissing money into a spending bonfire, driving inflation with excess liquidity, isn’t going to help; bit it’s just as bad as crippling growth by holding it back for lack of capital injection
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> The companies in the 500 are mostly global companies Isn't that saying exactly what the parent comment mentioned? Since those companies are global, the growth of the S&P 500 which is USD denominated will track the devaluation of the USD as the underlying companies haven't lost value, the dollar has, and the S&P 500 would track that as growth in percentage to balance it. I don't understand why they would be losing m…
I don't think they are losing money? This is clearly the USD Global index dropping a few basis points, which is an active strategy. Look at the USD Index over 15 year period, there is nothing wrong with USD today.
What I'm asking, to me it seems if the USD drops in value, but everything else stays the same (i.e. GOOG hasn't lost any real value if measured in any other currency for instance). I'd expect GOOG to rise in USD terms (as its value has stayed constant).
Why wouldn't this be true (yes, there are a bunch of assumptions/complexities, and perhaps those assumptions/complexities break the argument), but at a very simplistic level is what I said wrong?
There's a quote by Mahatma Gandhi that resonates whenever I see contrasting debates about this economic indicator or that: "I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Wi…
> But it will not benefit the poorest - social welfare schemes do that, but anti-homeless measures cancel it out. Can you explain what you mean by anti-homeless measures ?