Category: Economics of Investing

What is your savings rate?

One important factor in determining your potential to start investing is your savings rate. That is, the share of your total income that you don’t spend in month year. It can vary from negative values (if you increase debts) towards values as high as 50% or that you only spend half of your income on consumption. Looking at the average across people in countries, here the savings rates in 2018 across countries , which are all pretty much in the… Continue reading What is your savings rate?

Robin Hood and Zorro – Investing to take from the rich and give to the poor?

While this idea might sound strange, it is interesting to note that claims combining investing with some sort of soceital justice argument has been received increased attention in recent years. Look at the low-cost (and easy access, low entry requirements etc.) broker Robin Hood (https://robinhood.com/us/en/) that is currently shaking up competition on the (U.S.) online broker market. Or Zorro (https://www.zorro-trader.com/), a very useful software to test and implement trading strategies. The latter has as their slogans indeed the famous “Take… Continue reading Robin Hood and Zorro – Investing to take from the rich and give to the poor?

Ethical behaviour, your values, and the role of Investing

This blog is based on the idea that investing is not a (merely) question about profit maximization or making money, but sees it from a rather societal and broad perspective. One important dimension of one’s life consists in certain core values one might embrace or define as one’s personal values according to which to live one’s life. We all have different goals and priorities, some might pursue maximization of wealth, many consider laws enacted by governments as boundaries, others engage… Continue reading Ethical behaviour, your values, and the role of Investing

Tax reasons for investing

Taxation is an important, complex, and necessary issue. As they say: the only two certain things in life are death and taxes. While the overall role and purpose of taxation (basically, providing public goods and redistribution) are important, one striking observation is that labour and capital income are in most countries taxed differently. While personal labour income is taxed typically at a increasing marginal tax rate, capital income and gains are in most cases taxed at a fixed capital gains… Continue reading Tax reasons for investing