From the article:

The new rate includes a variable portion of 4.08% based on inflation data, and a fixed portion of 1.40%. The fixed rate is up from 0.90% announced in April, and the highest since 2006.

Combined, the composite I bond rate is 5.51% after rounding, according to the Treasury.

Seems like inflation is bad of these seem like an attractive investment again.

Germany just freed up half a trillion euros to rebuild itself — and eighteen months later, the money has barely moved. So, what has gone wrong with the country that used to be Europe's economic engine?

Everyone has a favourite villain: the end of cheap Russian gas, Chinese competition, Trump's tariffs. But none of them explains why a town outside Berlin can't spend two million euros to resurface a road, even after the cash has been handed over. In this video I look at the real problem underneath Germany's economic stall — a system so built around caution and consensus that it can't move, even when it desperately needs to.

We get into the suspended debt brake and the €500 billion that won't spend, the phantom construction sites, Germany's shift from mechanical engineering to a software-driven economy it wasn't built for, the "Export World Champion" trap, and why the American alternative — pouring billions into moonshots and space-based power grids — might be the opposite pathology rather than the answer. Featuring the work and ideas of Wolfgang Münchau (Kaput), Michael Pettis, Adam Tooze, and reporting from the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg.

Is Germany's decline permanent, or is the recovery already quietly underway? That's the open question — and it's not really a German question. It's just that Germany got there first.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/46894980

Hi, I am a young Italian (I guess the "poste Italiane" gives it away uh) and I plan to make my fist small experiments to understand how buying stoks and ETFs works.

I tried to look around what all those acronyms and big words mean but usually the definition and explanations I found use other acronyms and big words and end up being mentally exhausting to follow.

As far as I understand An ETF is a group of companies that share a market and by shoving money in there (investing in the found is the right phrase I guess)

you either buy stocks

(which are just money you give the company to spend and after the profit is made it should give it back with a certain interest I think, right? How much interest and how often is a great mystery I have yet to solve)

or fractions of stocks

(what is the point of a stock being a certain price then???? If i can just buy a small piece of it???)

from one of the companies in the found

(randomly I guess, or according to a broker whims maybe idk)

and when the dividends are paid you can either get some money back or reinvested in the found.

Those ETFs are apparently more secure because they spread your money around multiple companies within multiple fields and I feel like I should invest more in those then in singular companies, is that right?

Also I'm planning to start with 50€ each month but if I feel comfortable enough I plan to rise the investment to maybe 300€ monthly, but I often see people saying that for those amounts of money (which are a fuckton to me) you should just dump in a single ETF and forget about it for like 10 years, but it feels so wrong to put so much money into something with risks attached to it and then ignoring it, is there something else I'm not getting? (As opposed to all the other things I'm understanding perfectly, right?)

Maybe ram prices will eventually come down too now?

Recall my previous post when the threat was emerging a couple years ago. Now that shit has played out. Now Discovercard customers are served by a much bigger scumbag.

It’s also a practical problem. The hand-off was apparently incompetently executed so now I have suppliers harassing me because the Discovercard they have on file quit working. And it looks like Cap One wants to stuff their app and shit down our throats. Fuck me if that’s true.

Around a decade prior the Japanese network (JCB) pulled out of the US. So no quasi-ethical refuge.

As Donald Trump and Xi Jinping wrap up their summit in Beijing with little more to show for it than a few awkward handshakes, the media is left wondering where the big breakthrough went. But as we explore in this video, the failure of the "beans and Boeings" summit wasn’t a political failure—it was a certainty.

Relying on the insights of economist Michael Pettis, we break down why trade surpluses and deficits are driven by domestic savings and investment choices, rather than trade policies or tariffs. From China’s systematic suppression of household consumption to the United States' structural trap as the global consumer of last resort, the underlying economic imbalances forcing this trade war cannot be fixed by podium announcements.

Finally! We just don't get enough mergers these days.

The US cosmetics company Estée Lauder is in talks over a potential merger with the Spanish group Puig, the owner of brands including Jean Paul Gaultier and Rabanne, to create a $40bn fashion and beauty giant.

Estée Lauder is one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of skin care, makeup and fragrances with a portfolio that includes Clinique, Bobbi Brown and Tom Ford Beauty.

Puig, which floated on the Madrid stock market two years ago, owns brands including Charlotte Tilbury, Carolina Herrera and Dries van Noten.

Both brands confirmed that they were holding discussions over a potential “business combination”, but gave no detail on the possible structure of the merger.

“No final decision has been made and no agreement has been reached,” Puig said. “Until an agreement exists, it cannot be guaranteed that any transaction will take place or what its terms would be.”

Patrick Boyle is always a good watch.

Are there any investment funds (ETFs or mutual funds) which exclusively purchase municipal bonds in “green” cities?

Most mutual funds seem to profit from unethical companies. Genocide (Lockheed, Google), Climate Catastrophe (BP, ExxonMobil), Slavery (Verizon, Walmart). Murder (UnitedHealth, Dow Chemical).

It seems like municipal bonds might be one of the more ethical ways to invest money.

Specifically, I’m looking to invest in cities that are building-out infrastructure that will lead to an elimination on their dependence on fossil fuels. For example:

1. Closing roads and building bicycle lanes.
2. Building electrified trains and dedicated bus lanes.
3. Passing laws to establish a maximum number of parking spots per person.
4. Mixed Zoning (walkable cities)
5. Banning fossil fuel power plants while building hydro/solar/wind/geothermal
6. Passing laws to heavily tax carbon emissions
7. And, of course, cities that invest in education usually get a great ROI.

Cities that come to mind include Paris and New York.

I could try to do all the research myself, and find a bunch of other cities that are on the right path -- but that seems like a full-time job, and it’s probably better to just have a fund manager do this research for us.

Are there already any funds that invest in municipal bonds exclusively in “green” cities?

“Inflation looks to be sapping some of Americans’ holiday cheer as they head out to buy gifts this Christmas season, according to the CNBC All-America Economic Survey. The survey found the high cost of goods has emerged as a major factor affecting how much shoppers spend and where they spend, suggesting inflation of the past several years and the rise in import goods prices from tariffs are being felt at the checkout counter. The survey of 1,000 people nationwide, with a margin of error of +/- 3.1%, found that the high cost of goods is the top reason Americans are spending less and, in a first for the survey, the main reason they are spending more. … Overall, 41% of Americans plan to spend less this year, with 42% saying they will spend about the same and 16% saying they will spend more.”

Want to buy a new shirt from your friendly neighborhood small business? In some cases, be prepared to pay out 2.5% more as a “financing” fee because you’re using a credit card. Enjoying that meal at the local diner? Better have cash or you could be subject to the same fee. Grabbing a bag of chips and a soda at the local convenience store? Oops … Unless you’re prepared to spend a minimum of 10 bucks you can’t use your credit card, sorry.

I’ve always been irritated by these practices. And I know I’m not alone. Who carries cash any more? Why are we, the customer, being shamed because we choose to buy something using what has become a standard form of payment over something that’s clearly a thing of the past?

Merchants have been fighting the credit card companies about these fees for years. And now they’ve won. This past week, Visa and Mastercard ended their battle, and now future fees will probably be lower for consumers that use some cards, particularly the ones that offer fewer rewards. But did these businesses really win? I’m not so sure. Be careful what you ask for.