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Comment by subsubzero | Hacker News Reader

yeah its not clear but that seems to be the case. Meanwhile in the US I am getting 4.5% of a few high interest savings accounts I have open, I am not sure if these options are available to Europeans but if they are there are banks that are paying really good interest rates. That being said the major US banks are offering absurdly low interest rates and I just use them for a checking account and nothing else.

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>Meanwhile in the US I am getting 4.5% of a few high interest savings accounts I have open, I am not sure if these options are available to Europeans

They aren't. In my Euro area the highest interests on savings accounts I can find at banks is 2,5% and that's as a special offer for new customers.

We in Europe are being fleeced from all sides, while banks, energy, real estate, food companies are having their most profitable quarters ever. Something's gotta change.

I concur : my bank currently offers 1.95% deposit interest's rate for a year (Apr '23)

2.5% in Europe when 6m German bills yield 3% is actually comparable to 4.5% in the US with 6m Treasury bills yielding 5%.

Europeans can get exposure to dollar interest rates but that brings along currency risk between USD and EUR.

My European savings account has 6% interest. Not EUR though.

Let me guess. zloty?

Just a little bit to the south.

That's insane. Where?

Czech Koruna. Every bank there offers it now. But the currency is losing against EUR right now (after it gained a lot in the past year).

It’s not insane since it’s not in Euro.

In Romania I’m getting 7% in the local currency, but inflation is much larger than in the Eurozone so it doesn’t really mean anything.

What actually matters to an Eurozone resident is the currency movement against EUR, not the local consumer price inflation - you don't need to be a local consumer at all. These indicators don't move in lockstep, in case of CZK they actually moved in the opposite direction than expected.

>but inflation is much larger than in the Eurozone

I doubt it. The RON has been stably held to the Euro. It's still 5 RON = 1 Euro like before. So the RON inflation should be tracking exactly the same Euro inflation.

The new trend in Europe is to talk about consumer price inflation (increase) when they say "inflation". What they mean is that usual stuff (food, building materials, etc) costs more. There's no reason the local prices should track EUR "inflation", and it's true that they don't.

How much that matters to you is another thing - it matters a lot to a poor/average wage person, I think it doesn't mean much when you're making a SWE salary.

Sure, but on HN we can only talk about CPI, as that's what every government reports and it's something we can easily compare. We can't compare each other's own inflation because we live in different countries and have different jobs, expenses, lifestyles, etc.

We all know "the real inflation I'm feeling is higher than the one reported by the government" trope but there's nothing we can do about it here and now.

The RON has not moved against the EURO.

Yeah, RON hasn't moved against EUR - but the price of bread, butter, eggs, ham, cheese etc in RON (as well as EUR) has moved up. That's not pegged to prices anywhere.

On >15% inflation. :)

Your savings are still vanishing at a highest rate in the last 30 years even with this savings rate subtracted.

Not really, my savings converted to EUR gained thanks to the currency movement and then the interest - which is bigger than anywhere in the Eurozone. I am mostly interested in that since I buy property in Eurozone countries. What I spend in CZ is peanuts. Yeah I can buy less bread and butter but I don't really care, it's not like I'm going to buy food for 5M CZK, I spend less than 15k/month on that. And Czech property prices are currently going down anyways.

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