-
[QUOTE=Mursenary;2553548]A ranking of savings rate by country of is dominated by lower income nations.[/QUOTE]The Wiki link you posted is for gross national savings, which according to the first paragraph "consists of personal saving, plus business saving, plus government saving". You and Pessimist were discussing personal finance and immigrant savings habits, so I believe a better metric to use would be household savings. On OECD page, I switched to "Table" view and sorted by 2016. China's household savings of 36 % is more than double the second ranked country, Switzerland 17 %.
[URL]https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-savings.htm[/URL]
[QUOTE=Mursenary;2553548]As generations acquire more wealth, savings rates would understandably decrease. China's average household income doubled in the last decade while savings rate decreased by only 6%. But 33% of 2 x is still much more than 39% of x.[/QUOTE]At above link, if we switch to chart view, you can see China's savings rate was 28 percent in 2000, peaking at 39 percent in 2010. I would say gross income in China has been an upward trend since 1978.
[QUOTE=Mursenary;2553548]I know so many old Asian immigrants who have hundreds of thousands or millions in savings, all houses and cars paid for, but still live off of $15 K per year.[/QUOTE]These Asian immigrants probably immigrated pre-1990?
-
[QUOTE=ExpatLover;2553423]All this is not coming from really independent experts, as always the devil is in the details. Advice you to have a look at the last presentation of the IHU Marseilles concerning the datas that Pfister, Moderna. Gave to the different authorities FDA, Europe, if after that you still believe that everything is safe and that there was no rush, why not but it is absolutely no my thinking. All the leaders are afraid of potential coming revolutions and destabilization, they have no other solution that to make us think that the vaccines are the solution, the vaccines are a tool, like masks, social distancing but applying all those rules are not good for the business, they want us to come back as fast as possible to the live of 2019, that we consume again useless products, purchase if possible on credit. Are you not happy to buy a Iphone for 1000 USD, a Mac for 2500, a terrible none ecological car from Tesla, a plastic bag from Louis Vuitton, all this on credit)).[/QUOTE]We have now in very deep France people who were vaccined and died from south African, I really wonder how south African could reach so deep part of France. Wish only because they were very old and weak. 30% south African cases in Metz district, really incredible, even close to Luxemburg and Germany, when also mainly UK cases now in whole France.
-
[QUOTE=Sirioja;2553659]We have now in very deep France people who were vaccined and died from south African, I really wonder how south African could reach so deep part of France. Wish only because they were very old and weak. 30% south African cases in Metz district, really incredible, even close to Luxemburg and Germany, when also mainly UK cases now in whole France.[/QUOTE]It is called the South African variant because it was identified and sequenced in South Africa, but it could have generated anywhere in the world. In the same way, the UK variant is called so because it was first identified and sequenced there, but it could have well be originated in France or anywhere else.
-
[QUOTE=Sirioja;2553659]We have now in very deep France people who were vaccined and died from south African, I really wonder how south African could reach so deep part of France. Wish only because they were very old and weak. 30% south African cases in Metz district, really incredible, even close to Luxemburg and Germany, when also mainly UK cases now in whole France.[/QUOTE]So easy coming through la reunion, mayotte, Madagascar. The next 1 seems to be the Indian variant, 2 and 3 important mutations in the spike protein, probably the vaccines will not work, and I am sure it is already in Europe, through UK, Holland. The only solution is the close the boarders like China, but obviously we will never do it, we are a democracy.
-
[QUOTE=RockyV;2553681]It is called the South African variant because it was identified and sequenced in South Africa, but it could have generated anywhere in the world. In the same way, the UK variant is called so because it was first identified and sequenced there, but it could have well be originated in France or anywhere else.[/QUOTE]But when UK variant spread all over UK on end of last year, at this time no spreading in continental Europe, but started after Christmas and new year holidays, and still under since 4 months. I wish it prefers rain and fog rather than heat. Unfortunately we had very cold on April, wish for big heat as soon as possible, even not good for ski.
-
[QUOTE=ExpatLover;2553683]So easy coming through la reunion, mayotte, Madagascar. The next 1 seems to be the Indian variant, 2 and 3 important mutations in the spike protein, probably the vaccines will not work, and I am sure it is already in Europe, through UK, Holland. The only solution is the close the boarders like China, but obviously we will never do it, we are a democracy.[/QUOTE]Yes Brazilian and south African are already in some EU countries after UK one, 20% Brazilian in Portugal, Brazilian and south African in very deep France, when our doctors say they are not sure for vaccine efficiency, but we all know Chinese government is a big liar, we can t trust, most of Chinese not even trusting and afraid. What is average salary for whole China?
-
Austria opening 19 May
Austria announced more relaxed measures starting with 19 May. To have access to restaurants, hotels, etc people need one of the following: proof of recovery from Covid, a valid recent test or vaccination.
-
[QUOTE=McAdonis;2553598]The Wiki link you posted is for gross national savings, which according to the first paragraph "consists of personal saving, plus business saving, plus government saving". You and Pessimist were discussing personal finance and immigrant savings habits, so I believe a better metric to use would be household savings. On OECD page, I switched to "Table" view and sorted by 2016. China's household savings of 36 % is more than double the second ranked country, Switzerland 17 %.
[URL]https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-savings.htm[/URL]
At above link, if we switch to chart view, you can see China's savings rate was 28 percent in 2000, peaking at 39 percent in 2010. I would say gross income in China has been an upward trend since 1978.
These Asian immigrants probably immigrated pre-1990?[/QUOTE][URL]https://www.wsj.com/articles/less-savings-more-debt-how-chinese-manage-money-american-style-in-17-charts-11572427805[/URL]
-
[QUOTE=PaulInZurich;2553572]Actually it's you that you have a writing and logical thinking disability.[/QUOTE]It's a writing and / or logic issue. Poor communication from a communications expert.
First on the issue of logic, his thoughts are obviously logically flawed as one can answer yes to both questions believing in both god and conspiracy theories.
But, he only saw one side, expecting you to 1.) not believe in god, then therefore must 2.) declare religion to be a conspiracy theory. That would be logical except that the communications expert communicated that erroneously.
The poster presented 2 yes / no questions but randomly attached a "choose one" condition. What does "choose one" have anything to do with answering two binary conditions? The proper way to communicate what he was getting at would have been to say "you can only reject one," poor communication.
All the YouTube videos in the world can only mask the baseline deficiencies of a mind not suited for logical processing and an education in communications obviously does not ensure adequate communication skills.
-
[QUOTE=Sirioja;2553715]Yes Brazilian and south African are already in some EU countries after UK one, 20% Brazilian in Portugal, Brazilian and south African in very deep France, when our doctors say they are not sure for vaccine efficiency, but we all know Chinese government is a big liar, we can t trust, most of Chinese not even trusting and afraid. What is average salary for whole China?[/QUOTE]In 2008, basic salary for a worker in a factory was 150 euros, 3 times more for the people working in construction, today minimum salary is 500 euros but very difficult to find people, electrician is 1000 but so many Chinese people want to be self entrepreneur only very few want to work as employee. You have to know that everywhere you can panels "we hire" but no candidates result of so many years of 1 child for 1 family.
-
Europe will not close borders for reasons of plain stupidity. A democracy can close borders easilty. And that has been done before.
[QUOTE=ExpatLover;2553683]So easy coming through la reunion, mayotte, Madagascar. The next 1 seems to be the Indian variant, 2 and 3 important mutations in the spike protein, probably the vaccines will not work, and I am sure it is already in Europe, through UK, Holland. The only solution is the close the boarders like China, but obviously we will never do it, we are a democracy.[/QUOTE]
-
[QUOTE=Mursenary;2553574]Everyone here is completely wrong on all of their claims.
COVID is just a bioweapon brought by extraterrestrial aliens. Having exploited the wave-particle duality of the Higgs Boson particle, aliens figured out how to localize matter across light years of space.
This technology allowed them to directly localize the coronavirus from light years away directly into the anus of a lab bat residing in a Wuhan laboratory. One of the Chinese scientists who had a sexual bat fetish, unknowingly contracted the virus during his nightly anal sexy time with the infected bat. After his evening bat coitus session, he further spread the virus at a basement "pizza party" where the pedophile elite infected dozens of children in Wuhan. The asymptomatic children spread the virus across the globe through these basement pizza parties with world elites.[/QUOTE]You're a mentally sick weirdo. You should try to get a job, maybe McDonalds will hire you. Probably not.
-
[QUOTE=Mursenary;2553548]Normalized savings rates are definitely skewed towards some cultures. I remember discussing with an Indian American that I thought a 15-20% savings rate was pretty good for the average person. Well, for most Westerners that seems fair to me. He however nearly scolded me to say that 25% up to 50% should be the norm. A ranking of savings rate by country of is dominated by lower income nations. The USA comes in at 100th at 16.9%. Honestly that's higher than I would have thought.
[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gross_national_savings?wprov=sfti1[/URL]
But perhaps that is also due to a difference in gross income. As generations acquire more wealth, savings rates would understandably decrease. China's average household income doubled in the last decade while savings rate decreased by only 6%. But 33% of 2 x is still much more than 39% of x. The same inverse trend would likely be observed when gross income increases by moving from a third world nation to a first world nation. But once, you get your nest egg settled, luxury and convenience spending increases. I know I was near broke 6 years ago. I hoarded so much cash for a few years but now I spend a ridiculous amount on leisure. First generations may not have that same issue though. I know so many old Asian immigrants who have hundreds of thousands or millions in savings, all houses and cars paid for, but still live off of $15 K per year.[/QUOTE]Living on $15 grand a year is tough. I have a few Indian friends, they are actually very well off. Some are born here, some are first gen immigrants. None of them live that frugally. Your Indian friend at that level of frugality sounds too miserly, no offense. Perhaps it works for them.
I have no mortgage and even so my monthly fixed expenses are way more than that. My property tax itself is north of that amount and it is not because I am living in a high tax rate state like NJ. HOA dues, insurance adds on top. Unless you are brutally frugal, there are $400 more expenses a month such as pool maintenance, lawn, fertilizer, house clean etc. Utilities take another 4 to 5 grand a year, even if you are on vacation for large amounts of time. You are looking at nearly $30 grand a year before you spend a dime on yourself.
No Caucasian woman would put up living on $15 K annual total if you have millions in the bank. None that I know of. And as I said, it does not matter if they already own their house -- there are still fixed expenses (Unless they bought a small studio apartment which was paid off and taxes / insurance etc are miniscule). Clearly, that would imply a pretty lousy quality of life -- then one wonders what is the point of making the money in the first place. I think a few immigrants are driven to save and save and pass it all to their children, typically that is not a Western mindset. We want to make sure our kids are taken care off but not at the cost of us living in misery.
Cars are a different issue. I drive mid range cars at best and I drive them to their death. Colleagues that make less than a fifth of what I make at my firm drive much fancier cars than I do. That is a personal preference. On the other hand, I pay an obscene amount for my kids schools, still in middle school. I figure its going to cost me north of half a mil for each kid by the time they have their bachelors degree in hand.
All in all, even if one doesn't live extravagantly it is tough to accumulate huge wealth if gross annual income is less than $150-200 K if also having to support a family. But what I meant in my prior comment was that I also know quite a few who pull in half a mil annually and still don't have socked away enough and would run through their savings if out of a job for a year or two. That, to me, is pathetic.
The math for single men works differently, which I am not. One wonders if single men would still be motivated to keep making as much as they can past 50's- they don't need to support anyone, and the calculation for them must be" how much do I need to save, when do I stop working, and how much fun do I want to have for the rest of my life and what does it cost?
-
[QUOTE=PaulInZurich;2553732]Austria announced more relaxed measures starting with 19 May. To have access to restaurants, hotels, etc people need one of the following: proof of recovery from Covid, a valid recent test or vaccination.[/QUOTE]Thanks for keeping us updated RE Osterreich. Let us know when the Vienna airport is ready to accept vaccinated Amerikaner and GT is open again.
-
[QUOTE=Pessimist;2553831]Living on $15 grand a year is tough. I have a few Indian friends, they are actually very well off. Some are born here, some are first gen immigrants. None of them live that frugally. Your Indian friend at that level of frugality sounds too miserly, no offense. Perhaps it works for them.
I have no mortgage and even so my monthly fixed expenses are way more than that. My property tax itself is north of that amount and it is not because I am living in a high tax rate state like NJ. HOA dues, insurance adds on top. Unless you are brutally frugal, there are $400 more expenses a month such as pool maintenance, lawn, fertilizer, house clean etc. Utilities take another 4 to 5 grand a year, even if you are on vacation for large amounts of time. You are looking at nearly $30 grand a year before you spend a dime on yourself.
No Caucasian woman would put up living on $15 K annual total if you have millions in the bank. None that I know of. And as I said, it does not matter if they already own their house -- there are still fixed expenses (Unless they bought a small studio apartment which was paid off and taxes / insurance etc are miniscule). Clearly, that would imply a pretty lousy quality of life -- then one wonders what is the point of making the money in the first place. I think a few immigrants are driven to save and save and pass it all to their children, typically that is not a Western mindset. We want to make sure our kids are taken care off but not at the cost of us living in misery.
Cars are a different issue. I drive mid range cars at best and I drive them to their death. Colleagues that make less than a fifth of what I make at my firm drive much fancier cars than I do. That is a personal preference. On the other hand, I pay an obscene amount for my kids schools, still in middle school. I figure its going to cost me north of half a mil for each kid by the time they have their bachelors degree in hand.
All in all, even if one doesn't live extravagantly it is tough to accumulate huge wealth if gross annual income is less than $150-200 K if also having to support a family. But what I meant in my prior comment was that I also know quite a few who pull in half a mil annually and still don't have socked away enough and would run through their savings if out of a job for a year or two. That, to me, is pathetic.
The math for single men works differently, which I am not. One wonders if single men would still be motivated to keep making as much as they can past 50's- they don't need to support anyone, and the calculation for them must be" how much do I need to save, when do I stop working, and how much fun do I want to have for the rest of my life and what does it cost?[/QUOTE]The Indian guy was not living that frugally. He was just an example of cultural savings norms. The $15 K cost of living, I'm picturing first gen senior citizen immigrants. You had it right when you said "live for your kids. " That's the mindset of many first generation immigrants.
Your views come from a white collar American with kids. HOA, Private school, manicured lawns, etc. Those are not concerns of the poor working class, much less poor immigrants. That's the point of the whole conversation, different standards and habits if you grow up with different expectations.
Pool maintenance? First Gen Immigrant: You have pool? We buy inflatable pool from WalMart.
Fertilize manicured lawns? First Gen Immigrant: Dog shit on yard for free. Why you try to impress neighbor Karen?
Vacation? First Gen Immigrant: We drive 6 hour to cousin house in Florida.
Private school? First Gen Immigrant: Aye yah, so stupid, public school free, study harder.
Example finances of a senior citizen immigrant living in the American south:
No mortgage, no car payments, insurance via Medicaid.
Property tax at senior tax rates: $1200 per year; Home insurance: $1000 per year.
Liability auto insurance: $400 per year.
Utilities and cell phone: $250 per mo, $3000 per year.
Groceries: $300 per month: $3600 per year.
Gross overhead: <9 K per year.
How do I know those numbers? Those are my mother's expenses.
Many first gen immigrants never experienced first world luxuries when they were your age or mine so they continue to live the lifestyle to which that they have been accustomed. And they are quite happy, so long as the kids and grandkids are secure.
Their children, while not anywhere near as frugal, would naturally adopt some of the same mentalities. So from my essentially second gen perspective, acquiring wealth from the US is easy if you are not spoiled by trivial American spending habits. For a person who is making a low 6 figure salary, with a wife generating some income, a couple kids; if that family can't put away the bare minimum, which I determine to be 401 K max of $19.5 thousand per year for 22 years, then they need to stop keeping up with the Jones and cut their luxury spending.