Author: Alberto

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What does Trump want to prove with the new tariffs being levied on China?

Nobody really knows for sure. Probably not even Trump.

So far, the administration and Trump have not articulated what is realistic and what China could do that would lead the US to stop imposing tariffs.

It must be said that what Trump is doing with the tariff is not something — strictly speaking — new.

The US have a 25 percent tariff on imported trucks that goes back to the “Chicken War” of 1963 with the European Union, where the European Union kept the US chicken out of their market, and in retaliation the US imposed a 25 percent tariff on trucks. Continue reading “What does Trump want to prove with the new tariffs being levied on China?”

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Why is the EU fighting so hard to stop the UK from leaving? Why not just let the UK go?

Think of the EU as a club where members don’t trust each other.

So this EU club set up certain rules that all members contributed to draft and agreed upon: if the rules are breached by one or more members, the other members can rely to an agreed juidicial body that will keep things in order.

One day, one of its most active, rich and powerful members decided that he has enough and wants to leave the club.

If the EU club still wants to exists, it must keep the sets of rules that all of its members previously agreed upon, even if one member, no matter how rich or powerful, decides to leave the club. Continue reading “Why is the EU fighting so hard to stop the UK from leaving? Why not just let the UK go?”

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To what extent is the value of Coinbase tied to the value of Bitcoin?

Not much as their revenues are made of commission (in the form of buy/sell spread on the actual market price) on the transactions made on their exchange.

In this respect, Coinbase is basically like a traditional Bank operating in the FX market: regardless of a certain market movement in price, the Bank will always buy at a little below the market price and sell at a little above market price, thus always making a profit.

For this reason, Coinbase value is more tied to the average number of daily transactions effected on its exchange rather than to the value of Bitcoin.

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Can a Brexit supporter give me one definite advantage of leaving the largest trading bloc in the world?

I am not a Brexit supporter but I spoke with a few of them (all living and working in London, most of them working in law firms and investment banks: the situation elsewhere may well be completely different).

They gave me this explanation: Continue reading “Can a Brexit supporter give me one definite advantage of leaving the largest trading bloc in the world?”

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If DuckDuckGo does not track us, how come it is not as successful as Google?

For the following reasons:

A. Both are free for the user but Google provides consistently better quality results. DuckDuckGo is the underdog in this field and it is difficult for it to become more popular than Google given that the results it provides are less efficient than Google’s. This is the same problem that Yahoo and Bing are facing: they are not able to match Google’s quality of results and for this reasons users — always in a hurry and hating wasting time on useless pages — keep using what they know works best. Continue reading “If DuckDuckGo does not track us, how come it is not as successful as Google?”

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Will the $185k fine against the Airbnb host in NY make people afraid of using Airbnb?

I doubt so.

This is an example of what in political science goes under the name of “the authoritarian illusion of the powerful” whereby those in power pretend to prohibit something by simply out-lawing it and issuing a fine or penalty against a behaviour which is believed by a critical mass of the people in the community to be a legitimate and/or un-harmful service or exploit of resources. Continue reading “Will the $185k fine against the Airbnb host in NY make people afraid of using Airbnb?”

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Do you think someone that makes USD 900k a year is rich? What kind of lifestyle can this person afford?

It depends. Being rich is one of the most subjective things that exist.

I have a friend who is a lawyer in his late 40s and makes sensibly above the 900K USD yearly threshold (let’s say approximately 80k USD a month) and he surely does not believe to be poor but he pointed out to me the following details attached to that figure:

A. Slightly less than half of that sum goes away in taxes (40k USD). There is no way around it as he works in a big law firm which does not allow any room for tax avoidance schemes or under-reporting of revenues, which are quite common for solo practitioners and smaller firms; Continue reading “Do you think someone that makes USD 900k a year is rich? What kind of lifestyle can this person afford?”

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How did you lose your wealth?

My uncle (the brother of my father) never got married. He was born in 1950 and always lived the good life: he never had kids, not one Euro of debt, drove fast German cars, had amazing girlfriends (women literally adore him), made exotic travels, had tailor-made suits, knew literally most of the Bel Paese best restaurants in big and small cities alike, etc.

He started working in the Italian branch of a British company (at the time based in Naples) at 21 as a clerk and became a top manager in his late 40s. He was suddenly fired in the late 90s because of a restructuring and since he was already in his late 40s it was impossible for him to find a similar job at a competitor. Actually he could not find any job at all. Once out of the job market for a few years he basically gave up on looking for even a low-level job. Continue reading “How did you lose your wealth?”

Excellent advice

I wish I had read this when I was 20. My Parents didn’t teach me a thing about money, as my Father had a trust fund. Kids need to know about money and how to use it efficiently. Thank You for a great post.