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Either by tolerating some risk and investing locally or by buying some US Treasury bonds.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Aren't US treasury bonds about to become negative too? I vaguely recall something from recent negative interest rates discussion.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  We’re on that path, it’s not a sure thing yet. I’d be surprised if all developed countries didn’t have their bonds go negative eventually. Too much capital and not enough productive investments available.
- fileeditview 7y ago
  Oh and since this is about Germany: in Germany "Bundesanleihen" have already negative interest. It will become really impossible to save some money securely for "bad times". And if people want to tell me I should rather spend some money to push the economy... seriously? I don't need a new tv/phone/car/whatever every few years.. They tell you in the news to save the environment by doing "xyz" daily but just restrain on buying shit you don't need?? No that's too easy..
  - KozmoNau7 7y ago
    It's a symptom of late stage capitalism. It needs constant growth in order to sustain itself, but infinite growth is impossible. And in the process of everyone spending money to buy stuff they don't need, we're destroying the world we live in.
    - AdrianB1 7y ago
      Nothing to do with capitalism, any form of economy has a financial system and any financial system can have this problem. I studied economy in a Communist country, we had the same problems as everybody else.
      - socialdemocrat 7y ago
        What specifically? It did not seem like to me that communist countries were very focused on increasing consumer consumption at all. And if they had been, that would not exactly been a bad thing, given how much shortage there was of basic consumer goods in communist countries. I think it seems considerably more absurd in modern rich western countries today, that we are still pushing for ever high consumption. For all its flaws, the communist countries at least seem to focus more on items being more easy to reuse and repair. Western society is getting deeper and deeper into really short product cycles with products which are next to impossible to repair. We are essentially pushed to an artificially high consumption level.
    - repolfx 7y ago
      This isn't capitalism you're seeing at work. It's literally caused by market manipulation by a central bank - and central bankers are central planners! There was a good article in the Telegraph the other day by someone who used to work for the EU Commission on monetary policy back in the 90s, until he was fired for writing a book arguing that the ERM was terrible :) It argued that central banks are putting the world on a conveyer belt to communism. The argument ran like this. Because they believe their mandate is to create spending ("growth") at any cost, any form of savings - even low risk investments - is an enemy to their goal and must be suppressed. So they print money to buy up all the low risk investments, to force investors into higher risk investments. That creates bigger bubbles and to try and push back or shrink the resulting recessions they must keep pushing spending levels ever higher, so they buy more and more assets people are using to try and store value. The terminal state is one in which central banks own most of the economy, which is communism.
      - imtringued 7y ago
        This is one of the reasons why QE failed. The fed assumed that stock yields (price to earning) are the primary reason why people invest into stock and by pumping money into the stock market the yields will go down and become less attractive. In reality investors were happy that their stocks appreciated even if it was completely disconnected from the economic fundamentals of the companies that the stocks are representing.
    - thekyle 7y ago
      Why do you feel that infinite growth is impossible? Seems like once we've used up all of Earth's resources we can just move along to Mars, then the outer planets, and so on.
      - unionpivo 7y ago
        exponential growth, grows exponentially :) I can't find the article, but it was about extracting X(forgot which) material. And if you want just 1% yearly growth. If I recall correctly once you outgrow a planet, its less than 250 years before you outgrow whole of our galaxy, and less than 500 before whole known universe.
    - JetSpiegel 7y ago
      You can always reduce inequality, if you have money you can't spend. Just give it away and collect that sweet immaterial feeling of a job well done. Support causes you believe in.
- SilasX 7y ago
  They've been negative in real terms (subtracting off inflation) for a long time in taxable accounts for the typical US investor.
- rocqua 7y ago
  Yes, and many Western European bonds as well. This is part of the justification for negative interest by the ECB. The reason is that government bonds are essentially risk free. Since the ECB is totally risk free, if they were to offer a better interest than government bonds, that would be a no-brainer for banks. This has the effect of pulling the cash in banks into the ECB and thus out of investments. Cash that is not invested, but stored in the ECB is not contributing to the economy. Moreover, it is essentially unfair competition by the ECB. Finally, governments might be miffed that investors don't buy government bonds. There is another justification that is essentially focusing entirely on the "Cash that is not invested, but stored in the ECB is not contributing to the economy." line of reasoning. Here, the idea is simply to reduce the ECB interest so banks will want to invest more, thus growing the economy. This differs from the first argument because it doesn't care about the 'risk free interest rate' of the current market. It just wants more money in the economy.

Aren't US treasury bonds about to become negative too? I vaguely recall something from recent negative interest rates discussion.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
We’re on that path, it’s not a sure thing yet. I’d be surprised if all developed countries didn’t have their bonds go negative eventually. Too much capital and not enough productive investments available.
fileeditview 7y ago
Oh and since this is about Germany: in Germany "Bundesanleihen" have already negative interest. It will become really impossible to save some money securely for "bad times". And if people want to tell me I should rather spend some money to push the economy... seriously? I don't need a new tv/phone/car/whatever every few years.. They tell you in the news to save the environment by doing "xyz" daily but just restrain on buying shit you don't need?? No that's too easy..
- KozmoNau7 7y ago
  It's a symptom of late stage capitalism. It needs constant growth in order to sustain itself, but infinite growth is impossible. And in the process of everyone spending money to buy stuff they don't need, we're destroying the world we live in.
  - AdrianB1 7y ago
    Nothing to do with capitalism, any form of economy has a financial system and any financial system can have this problem. I studied economy in a Communist country, we had the same problems as everybody else.
    - socialdemocrat 7y ago
      What specifically? It did not seem like to me that communist countries were very focused on increasing consumer consumption at all. And if they had been, that would not exactly been a bad thing, given how much shortage there was of basic consumer goods in communist countries. I think it seems considerably more absurd in modern rich western countries today, that we are still pushing for ever high consumption. For all its flaws, the communist countries at least seem to focus more on items being more easy to reuse and repair. Western society is getting deeper and deeper into really short product cycles with products which are next to impossible to repair. We are essentially pushed to an artificially high consumption level.
  - repolfx 7y ago
    This isn't capitalism you're seeing at work. It's literally caused by market manipulation by a central bank - and central bankers are central planners! There was a good article in the Telegraph the other day by someone who used to work for the EU Commission on monetary policy back in the 90s, until he was fired for writing a book arguing that the ERM was terrible :) It argued that central banks are putting the world on a conveyer belt to communism. The argument ran like this. Because they believe their mandate is to create spending ("growth") at any cost, any form of savings - even low risk investments - is an enemy to their goal and must be suppressed. So they print money to buy up all the low risk investments, to force investors into higher risk investments. That creates bigger bubbles and to try and push back or shrink the resulting recessions they must keep pushing spending levels ever higher, so they buy more and more assets people are using to try and store value. The terminal state is one in which central banks own most of the economy, which is communism.
    - imtringued 7y ago
      This is one of the reasons why QE failed. The fed assumed that stock yields (price to earning) are the primary reason why people invest into stock and by pumping money into the stock market the yields will go down and become less attractive. In reality investors were happy that their stocks appreciated even if it was completely disconnected from the economic fundamentals of the companies that the stocks are representing.
  - thekyle 7y ago
    Why do you feel that infinite growth is impossible? Seems like once we've used up all of Earth's resources we can just move along to Mars, then the outer planets, and so on.
    - unionpivo 7y ago
      exponential growth, grows exponentially :) I can't find the article, but it was about extracting X(forgot which) material. And if you want just 1% yearly growth. If I recall correctly once you outgrow a planet, its less than 250 years before you outgrow whole of our galaxy, and less than 500 before whole known universe.
  - JetSpiegel 7y ago
    You can always reduce inequality, if you have money you can't spend. Just give it away and collect that sweet immaterial feeling of a job well done. Support causes you believe in.
SilasX 7y ago
They've been negative in real terms (subtracting off inflation) for a long time in taxable accounts for the typical US investor.
rocqua 7y ago
Yes, and many Western European bonds as well. This is part of the justification for negative interest by the ECB. The reason is that government bonds are essentially risk free. Since the ECB is totally risk free, if they were to offer a better interest than government bonds, that would be a no-brainer for banks. This has the effect of pulling the cash in banks into the ECB and thus out of investments. Cash that is not invested, but stored in the ECB is not contributing to the economy. Moreover, it is essentially unfair competition by the ECB. Finally, governments might be miffed that investors don't buy government bonds. There is another justification that is essentially focusing entirely on the "Cash that is not invested, but stored in the ECB is not contributing to the economy." line of reasoning. Here, the idea is simply to reduce the ECB interest so banks will want to invest more, thus growing the economy. This differs from the first argument because it doesn't care about the 'risk free interest rate' of the current market. It just wants more money in the economy.