Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LLCF who wrote (161284)	4/21/2002 11:52:58 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

Are you sure investment gains are counted as 'savings' in other countries??? No. I'm saying that Americans take their savings and invest it. When they do that our government doesn't count the return from the investment if it is an unrealized or realized capital gain. So if you roll up your gains into new investments your whole life that isn't counted as savings even if that investment return far outstrips your income. If you lived somewhere else in the world where people were averse to putting money into the market or starting businesses but instead put it in passbook savings, then that country would be considered (in the way they account for savings) as having a higher savings rate even when the return is NEGATIVE. Or are you simply saying that Americans have more money in the market, and therefore more that isn't counted??? Americans invest their savings....they borrow money to invest, so they invest other people's money in ventures to make money. They are far less risk averse than the Japanese or the Europeans. Superior returns come from engaging risk. In Japan people are risk averse primarily because they lost so much in their own bubble and they are older (people naturally become more risk averse as they age). In parts of Europe people don't engage risk because they pay such a high rate of taxation that the possible gains are taxed away (guaranteed existence comes with a hefty price tag). This is why you find a lot of wheeler dealer Europeans running businesses here in the states. I know a bunch.