🌟 The EU needs €750–800 billion of investment per year just to catch up with the US and China. How come?

That’s a real number coming from Mario Draghi's 2024 competitiveness report.

On average, Europeans save 15–20% of their income. Americans save around 4%.

Yet over the past 15 years, American household wealth has grown roughly three times faster than European.

ECB president Christine Lagarde named the reason: a third of European financial assets sit in cash and bank deposits — €11.5 trillion going almost nowhere. In the US, that figure is around 10%.

🌟 The actual gap is about what the money does next.

A euro left in a deposit in 2015 has barely kept pace with inflation. A euro put into a broad US equity index over the same period is now worth roughly two euros.

So why does this keep happening? Is it culture, or a system failure?

Sweden offers a clue. After introducing a simple, tax-friendly investment account in 2012, it became one of the highest-performing retail investment markets in Europe.

Most of Europe still hasn't built that infrastructure. The savings habit is strong, while investing habit is not.

That's exactly the gap Maclear operates in. We offer fixed, scheduled returns through P2P lending — a clear alternative to deposits for investors who want their money to work.

🌟 Full article at the link

Worth a read if you've ever wondered why doing everything "right" with money sometimes feels like falling behind.