Ten days ago, I took a leap of faith. Savings are earning nothing. Even the capital is not fully protected as it diminishes by the inflation rate. In this world of zero interest return, I made a long due diligence and took the plunge: I invested a good chunk of savings into financing a property developer's project in exchange of high interest rates. This is really out of my normal conservative approach to risk on savings. Extraordinary times require extraordinary decisions. But yesterday, I opened the news and ...Oh my!!!! 😧 Who is safe out there?
This week is about property. With asset inflation to infinity and beyond, nobody seems to have enough capital to buy anything anymore. We do not buy cars anymore (check on the car industry to get a flavour) but we take a Uber when needed. We Pay as we Go and we "Whatever" as a Service. To give an example, I recently saw a new one: "Brain as a Service". Oh well... why not! So it's probably logical that the new landlords of the 21st Century do not buy properties. Instead, they rent them to sublet them at a profit. And there is even a fancy name for this: Rent to Rent!
With so much big news this week (process of impeachment in the US, the Supreme Court ruling the U.K. government acted unlawfully, Thomas getting cooked...), I was very unsure what this weekly review should be about. Until I dug further... I'm sure you have heard about We Work (who has not?). Well, their IPO attempt failed. No big deal you may think. I thought this too. Until I dug under the carpet... Oh there's a potential time bomb here!