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Comment by iaskwhy | Hacker News Reader

I understand your point but the specifics about the European Union countries have changed a little since 2008, meaning nowadays all EU countries banks savings are really saved in any case up to 100k euros. This way, isn't money (up to 100k euros) considered safe in your view?

Inflation is something you still need to keep your eyes on but was there ever a case (say, in the last 10, 20 years) in the EU were inflation was higher than the median savings account interest rates? I honestly have no idea but I know for sure since 2011 interest rates have always been higher than the inflation rate in the UK, for example. If this were a fact of savings accounts in the EU then inflation is not really something to be affraid of.

Obviously I'm using "save" as "making just a bit of a money while taking zero risk".

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> This way, isn't money (up to 100k euros) considered safe in your view?

Not if they're in a greek account, for sure. They're better off in an account in a north-western EU country, but the Euro may still fail catastrophically.

Anyway, it's not about weighing risks, the GP was making a rhetorical point about being perfectly safe. Nothing is perfectly safe. For anything less that €100k, a bank account is a very safe place, and you can probably get a savings account that tracks reasonably closely to inflation. But it's not "making just a bit of a money while taking zero risk", it's "possibly breaking even with inflation, while taking microscopic risk". Unless you're only holding the money for a very short period of time, you're almost certainly better off sticking it in an investment vehicle with an acceptable (non-zero) risk profile.

The ECB has a 2% inflation target for the Euro. A regular bank account used to yield something like 0.25%, but for the last few years most have dropped yield altogether, in fact many have started charging for accounts.

So except for the last two-three years of freak financial conditions (low interest / low inflation), holding cash would lose you money rather fast.

Cash is eroded away by inflation. If your currency hits high inflation for years continuously, like we had in Iceland (yes, I'm from there), going up to 25%, your cash isn't worth shit in 5 years time.

I've experienced that. My parents experienced that. They had no "investments", kept their money in low-interest savings accounts, yet somehow their life savings was no longer enough to buy a used Toyota.

Want to get more strange? What about war? How much is your money worth in case WW3 breaks out? Hardly likely? sure. Is it possible? absolutely.

The point is, nothing is "safe", just different levels of risky.

Sure, I do agree that nothing is safe. But an EU law protecting savings up to 100k eur is an order of magnitude safer than a very small (though beautiful) country, completely isolated in the middle of nowhere with it's own currency were banks where marketing saving accounts much much higher than the inflation rates, right? It's not even comparable.

I'm visiting Iceland in March, I'm affraid I might enjoy it a bit too much, enough to make me want to live there. :)

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