As someone living in Europe, I’m really not sure how to financially insulate myself anymore. It’s not clear which asset class is safest to protect against inflation or a large negative economic event
Own your home, keep a small emergency savings account (~10k EUR), invest outside the bloc (VT, VTI, VEMAX). You've got robust social safety nets, any returns are gravy. Some currency risk is unavoidable.
(educational purposes only, not investing advice, pay a pro a fixed fee for an hour or two of time)
Germany will never run an trade deficit out of a stupid sense of pride, it's completely irrational, so 99%.
Just think about it. If Greece needs x billion € to pay its debt off the most logical way to deal with the problem would be to just buy a huge amount of Greek products rather than send x billion € directly.
>But if the asset bubble bursts and your home loses most worth.
Luckily the primary function of a home is to provide shelter. You don't have to worry about being out on the street if you're unemployed (pending you can afford local taxes).
Sibling comment gets it: regardless of everything else, you must "consume" housing, either as a capital good or in rent. Home ownership insulates you from shocks to the rental market.
It's possible that the house price falls by 10%. It is very, very unlikely that rents will crash by 10%; they're sticky, at best you'll see a very slow slide over years.
Yes, you must consume housing. But if you can't pay off your mortgage in a reasonable time frame (10-15 years), "owning" it doesn't give you any security, at least against sudden job loss. If house prices crash and you lose your job, you might be kicked out of your rented apartment, but that's it. At least here in Germany, if you were in the same situation as home owner, you'd lose your house and have to pay back the debt resulting from the lower house prices (unless you file for bankruptcy).
> But if you can't pay off your mortgage in a reasonable time frame (10-15 years), "owning" it doesn't give you any security, at least against sudden job loss.
If you're still paying your mortgage, do you really own your home?
> If you're still paying your mortgage, do you really own your home?
You own your home in this scenario just as much as the entity on the other side of the equation owns the income stream from your mortgage.
A mortgage is a collateralized loan. You agree to give up ownership of your collateral if you fail to meet the terms of you contract. So yes, you own the home now, subject to constraints.
Ownership is almost always subject to some constraints. Nobody says “do you own your home even though you can be taken out of it (and jailed) if you refuse to pay taxes on it?” even though that’s arguably a more extreme condition upon your ownership. While I am sympathetic to conversation about the broader meaning of ownership, this “mortgage => !ownership” thing is a tired meme.
If you don't own your home, that is a far higher priority than trying to protect a comparatively tiny sum of savings from inflation hitting the dangerous heights of 5%.
Far more important is keeping your salary up with inflation, since for most people 1y salary > savings.
> keep a small emergency savings account (~10k EUR)
Hopefully you don't mean in a bank? If history is any guide that's useless with capital controls initiated before the public even gets whiff of it, see Greece and Cyprus 2008. A bolted-down safe in your house seems to be the caveat on such a statement. Money in the bank simply isn't yours and far too many people don't realise this.
I don't like these kind of "insurances". It is very probable that when multiple banks go belly-up this could lead to serious inflation. You will get your money back in nominal terms, but what will you be able to buy from it? I even think that we should somehow count these "insurance" to the central bank balance sheet. If shit hits the fan the cb will sure as hell monetise the government debt needed to guarantee these amounts.
A small emergency savings account isn't there to insulate you against a sovereign debt crisis. It's there to insulate you if you lose your job and need a few months to pay your mortgage while you find a new one.
> It's still wise to at least consider the possibility of a bank failure, qv Northern Rock.
Most industrialized countries have insurance of bank deposits up to a certain point. So even if the bank goes poof your savings are still safe.
It would simply be prudent to have money in more than one bank (or credit union), as if something bad happens then things may get chaotic in the short term.
The best you can probably do is have some debt which will worth less and less over time as its nominal value stays the same whereas you get cost of living (CoL) increases with your salary so have more money in really terms to pay it off.
Other than that equities have (generally, but not always) had good enough nominal returns so that you get a real return increase in your investments.
You short the USD by borrowing in USD, spending USD while it is still valuable and then wait for it to devalue. Deflation is a bad thing so the Fed won't let it happen.
Of course the flaw with this is that I get 4% interest on personal loans so I actually can't make money off of this strategy.
For inflation, you probably want to diversify broadly among productive assets.
For insurance against negative economic events... that's a more rapidly evolving, short-term issue. To the extent you can do it, it is a matter of identifying near term risk sectors, and minimizing exposure to the and/or having investments in areas negatively correlated with the at risk sector.
I'd go with an ACWI ETF, if you want returns. Gold is also an option, I suppose, if you want to hedge against the economy and don't really need any returns.
“The nation of Israel was attacked by 7 Arab countries literally the day it was founded”.
So a bunch of foreign powers come in and take land off you and create a new nation state overnight and you’re supposed to just be chill!? Yeah - no shit they were attacked.
I’m not anti-Israel btw. Not in the slightest. I just find it funny that ppl act so shocked that - what was effectively an invasion - was not well received by the locals living in the region in the mid 20th century.
“But it’s their homeland...” Yeah I’d love to see how Americans would react if China/Russia came in overnight and carved out a new action state to give to Native Americans cause it was their homeland hundreds of years ago...
That argument would be more convincing if many of the attacking countries weren't created by the same foreign powers in exactly the same way around the same time.
The borders of Lebanon were set by the French in 1920 as part of the Mandate of Syria and Lebanon. It was recognized as independent by the French in 1941, and the French Mandate more or less dissolved following the end of WWII.
The borders of Syria were similarly drawn up by the French in 1920 under the same Mandate. French troops would not evacuate the territory until 1946.
The territory of Jordan was drawn up by the British around 1915, and they are also the ones that created the distinction between the territories of Palestine and Transjordan. It gained a measure of independence in 1922, but remained under British Mandate until 1946, when it was granted independence with The Treaty of London.
In fact, of Israel's 4 immediate neighbors by land, Egypt is the only one to have existed as any kind of autonomously governed territory prior to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the assumption of responsibility by occupying European powers.
The entire region was basically re-drawn and carved up by foreign powers following the end of WWI pretty much by necessity, since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire left an enormous power vacuum. Far from being an anomaly, Israel's creation is actually pretty consistent with the area overall.
> carved out a new action state to give to Native Americans
I rather like the idea that Native Americans could have their own country if they choose, as Jews do now, something better than reservations. China and Russia have nothing to do with it.
Forgive me, but that’s a pretty one sided view to take.
The local Jewish population was certainly instrumental as were Zionist groups in the UK and elsewhere. But you’re fooling yourself if you think great power diplomacy and the region’s colonial history weren’t also important factors.
I’d encourage you to look into the history of the British mandate, the Balfour Declaration, and the lead up to the 1947 Partition Plan/1948 War. It’s a fascinating story if nothing else.
The British mandate authorities outlawed all Jewish defense forces and tried to confiscate all arms from the Jewish population before they left the region. They also actively prevented Jews from immigrating to Israel:
That doesn’t mean the British state played no role. Are you saying the Balfour Declaration had no impact on developments in the region from 1917-1947?
I’m not saying the formation of Israel was 100% the result of intentional British foreign policy.
Foreign policy is messy and inconsistent. The various actors in the region were seeking different things at different times.
Yes the British were in some cases trying to disarm Jewish militants, but in many cases they were also the ones who had handed out the arms in the first place (eg. The Jewish Brigade).
I don’t see how you can dispute that this a messy, contested historical saga with many factors to consider.
I urge you to read more widely on this topic. If you’re so certain that your position is the correct one, you stand only to confirm your existing beliefs.
> Are you saying the Balfour Declaration had no impact on developments in the region from 1917-1947?
Not much, no. It was largely a symbolic act. Actual British policy remained hostile to the establishment of a Jewish state in Israel.
The fact is, that besides this exceptional, purely symbolic act, the British Empire as a foreign power did all it could to prevent the successful establishment of a Jewish nation in Israel.
> The Jewish Brigade
The Jewish Brigade was part of the British Army, a brigade of Jewish volunteers.
It is true that some individuals who served in that brigade ended up joining Israeli groups that eventually formed the IDF, but these were individual acts by individuals, and by no means an expression of a policy by the British Empire or any other foreign power.
> I urge you to read more widely on this topic.
I'm not sure well read you are on the topic, when your only example of a "foreign power" helping the nation of Israel in its inception is... the Jewish Brigade.
Did you know it was a brigade of individual volunteers within the British Army? If you did, I don't think you'd cite it as an example.
> In September of 1936, Wingate was posted to Palestine as an intelligence officer with the British Mandate. His obsession with the Bible had a profound effect on his views during this posting, turning him into an ardent Zionist and supporter of the idea of a Jewish state.
So this is yet another example of individual actions based on his personal convictions, not of the British Empire acting at the state level.
Compare that to the British official support of other military and paramilitary groups, such as the Arab Legion:
These examples shows substantial evidence for the British Empire itself formally supporting groups that _fought_ Israel. Indeed the Arab Legion was among the chief military forces to attack Israel in 1948:
> During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Arab Legion was considered the strongest Arab army involved in the war.[3] Glubb led the Arab Legion across the River Jordan to occupy the West Bank (May 1948). Despite some negotiation and understanding between the Jewish Agency and King Abdullah, severe fighting took place in Kfar Etzion massacre (May 1948), Jerusalem and Latrun (May–July 1948).
John Bagot Glubb was a British officer in official capacity leading a force trained and commanded by other British officers to a fight against Israel.
It certainly appears that it was individual action instead of state policy, but it did occur with state sanction:
> Wingate quickly conceived of a joint military unit, staffed by both colonial and local Jewish troops, to protect Jewish and British interests, and took the idea to Lieutenant-General Archibald Wavell, the commander of British forces in Palestine. Wavell, intrigued, granted Wingate his permission to set up such a unit. Wingate then pitched the unit to the Jewish Agency and directly to the Haganah (“the defense”), the pre-state Israeli military. The Agency, which originally opposed the idea, eventually had a change of heart, and in June of 1938, the Plugot Ha’Layla Ha’Meyuchadot, the Special Night Squads, were born.
And it sounds like even if it went against the letter of state policy, it certainly fulfilled the spirit of it, at least in other areas of colonial control:
> The SNS fulfilled a dual purpose that likely aided its establishment within a colonial administration opposed to the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine: Though it indeed fought against armed Arab insurgents who rose up in increasingly violent acts against British forces and against the Jewish yishuv (the settlement in Palestine), the unit’s stated purpose Wingate may have given to his superiors was to protect the oil pipelines of the Iraq Petroleum Company. The southern of two pipelines (the “TAPline”) which spanned Iraq to the Mediterranean ran for over 1,000 km from Mosul to Haifa, on the coast of British-controlled Palestine, and moved over 4 million tons of oil per year (between two lines) prior to the Second World War. This line was increasingly being bombed and sabotaged by Arab bands throughout the revolt, and as it ran through the Lower Galilee on its course to the sea, Wingate could easily patrol its length with the SNS from his base in Ein Harod.
> Wingate quickly conceived of a joint military unit, staffed by both colonial and local Jewish troops, to protect Jewish and British interests
The SNS were founded to "protect Jewish and British interests" which were attacked by the Arabs under the British Mandate. At no point did the British government start any group, or take any action, to aid the creation of Israel as a independent nation.
At most, you can claim that they sometimes tried to defend the Jews under their mandate from violent Arab attacks. Which makes sense, given that these Jews were under British mandate, supposed to be protected by the British, and massacres of Jews reflected poorly on the Brits.
Compare that to the official British government's actions in creating the nation of Jordan and founding the Arab Legion, and it's clearly much easier to argue that the British Empire helped create and support the nation of Jordan, while doing nothing for Israel, and in fact creating, training, and commanding one of the major military forces which attacked it after inception.
1) who allowed Jews to migrate into british mandate before the creation of the state?
Jews lived in the area continuously for thousands of years before, so some Jews already lived in places like Jerusalem long before the mandate begun. Even modern Jewish immigration to Israel happened before the Mandate, which only begun in 1923.
The Brits tried to limit Jewish immigration into the territory of Israel. The Jews responded by organizing illegal immigration:
Though generally the Brits were pretty effective in blocking these efforts, as soon as they left in May 15th 1948, large waves of Jewish immigrants (especially refugees) flowed into the newly-established Israel.
2) since the british did not opposed jewish state, why did they allow it to form?
It wasn't really their choice. The Brits had a mandate in Israel for a specific purpose. They tried to follow an agenda that suited them, and did not include helping the Jewish minority establish their own country, but instead aligned them with the Arab majority in the region - with the obvious goal of gaining and maintaining influence in the region by this choice.
The Jews understood that very clearly, and launched an insurgency campaign to rid themselves of the hostile and indifferent Brits:
This conflict soured relations between Israel and the UK for decades, arguably to this day.
The Jews accomplished their goal: the British mandate terminated and the Brits had to leave. However, the UK remained bitter towards the Jews and Israel, which reflected in its policy. The UK organized, armed, trained, and in some cases directly commanded Arab military forces that become major foes of Israel, notably the Arab Legion:
The "right of return" is a unique invention with no historical precedent. Ethnic groups got into conflicts since the dawn of humanity, and frequently one would displace the other. Nations won territories from each other in armed conflict.
There was never a "right of return" in any of these cases. Refugees are resettled in available locations.
The refugees in this case are deeply hostile to the nation of Israel and in particular to its Jewish population. That's why they became refugees in the first place.
The idea to try to simply resettle them among the Jews they hate has no precedence in human history. In Israel's case, it will lead to the Jews becoming (again) a persecuted minority, and end their independence. There's no reason to assume an Arab majority will treat the Jews any better than they treated them before 1948 and the decades of conflict that followed - and they already tried to destroy them in 1948.
The Middle East is also not a place where minorities are treated very kindly in general. Neither ethnic minorities, nor religious minorities - and the Jews are both.
TL;DR the "right of return" is an invention by the "social justice" crowd to promote a policy that sounds just and reasonable but is without precedent in human history, and is designed to make the Jews of Israel into a persecuted minority, subject to the same violent attacks they've been suffering for centuries - while stripping them of the protection of having their own state and military force.
Interesting I just find it ironic that israel have the law of return that allowed my friend Dan who has basically 0 material tie to that many to emigrate to israel but banished my friend Ahmed who still have the photos and records of their house and farm land.
I'm not saying this right or wrong but to me it's so extremely unfair especially coming from the people who experienced the holocaust.
The British government opposed the creation of the State of Israel and its armies fought alongside the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan during the 1948 war in an attempt to destroy the state. The US disavowed the 1948 partition plan, which in part led to the Arab and British invasion. The country that provided military support to the nascent Jewish state was not the capitalist West that had previously exerted military authority over the region: it was the USSR under Stalin, as part of an effort to destabilize the British. The USSR was in fact the first country to recognize the State of Israel (ironically, given later alliances in the Middle East). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_and_the_Arab%E2...
I urge you to read more widely on this topic. If you're so certain that your position is the correct one, you stand only to confirm your existing beliefs.
its not anti-Israeli to refute the statement "Foreign powers did not create Israel. Jews did." by pointing out the actual Middle Eastern Jews who lived in the region are the ones doing the worst in modern Israel
> Israel isn't perfect, and has its own internal tensions, much like the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and basically every other nation.
The level of racism in Israel is unique among Western nations:
* 53% of Israelis say Arabs should be encouraged to leave. Only 51% think they deserve equal rights. 46% say that they would not want to live near Arabs [1].
* 52% of Israeli Jews thinks African migrants are "a cancer" [2].
* 96% of Israeli Jews would be uncomfortable with their child marrying a Muslim, 89% say this about a Christian [3]
* 72% of all Israeli Jews thinks it is more important to keep Israel a Jewish majority than to keep Israel democratic [4].
> Trying to use these tensions as a wholesale argument against Israel is like claiming Sweden is an illegitimate country since it's going through social tensions and unrest due to immigration right now.
The tell-tale sign of a right-wing bigot is that they use the uninformed "what about Sweden!"-argument. The idea that immigration of brown-skinned people is a threat to their country because, apparently, and unknown to most Swedes, immigration has caused Sweden to collapse.
My "judgement" is that it is abhorrent to view African asylum seekers who flee war-torn countries as "cancer". I don't think that is an American standard. I don't think it is disrespectful to claim that it is racist to compare humans with cancer.
> Love it when a bunch of new users join the discussion to spread anti-Israeli propaganda.
You've made like 10 comments in this thread. I'm not accusing you of anything. But before you accuse others of "propaganda", maybe take a look at yourself and see who's behaving somewhat suspiciously in this thread.
I've made probably 30 comments in the last thread in which I participated, which had exactly zero to do with Israel. Unlike these new users, I have a history of comments on the site, and I have not joined today just to engage in this very specific thread.
Have a look at that Wikipedia article. No other "power" was fighting for Israel, as it was attacked by Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
This narrative of "invasion" and "stealing land" is entirely false and irrelevant to 1948. Iraq doesn't share a border with Israel, neither do Saudi Arabia or Yemen. Israel also didn't claim any territory from any of the others.
It was just tribal warfare, pure and simple. The Arabs didn't like the Jews, so they attacked them.
Folks like to assume that Israel was "helped" by various "foreign powers", notably the US. The reality? Not only did the US not help, but Israel was under a US arms embargo since its inception in 1948. The alliance between the US and Israel only started when Israel decisively won the 1967 war, because at that point the US figured it was in its best interest to ally with Israel.
Poor choice of words on my part. I meant British occupation of the region at the time and a promise by the British of the establishment of a home for Jewish ppl in the region.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, I’m not anti-Israel. Im saying that ppl shouldn’t be shocked that there was a hostile response by neighboring Arab nations when Jewish ppl asserted their claim to a new state in the region.
Basically what I did a terrible job of trying to get at is - that Israel isn’t special. Try create a new state anywhere and ppl around that area will get mad, doubly so if your beliefs don’t align.
> and a promise by the British of the establishment of a home for Jewish ppl in the region.
That promise meant next to nothing. The British actually tried to confiscate all the weapons held by the Jewish population before leaving Israel. They fully expected (and arguably, intended and hoped) that the Jews would lose to the Arabs in the ensuing war.
> Im saying that ppl shouldn’t be shocked
I think people "shouldn't be shocked" by the 1948 attack, and the many ensuing attacks, because the Middle East is a tribal region, has been such for centuries, and the Jews are a minority there. The Middle East has been an arena of ethnic and religious conflict for over 2,000 years, after all.
