Z.R. Huszár, a global citizen
Educator (teach Finance, FinTech and Real Estate)
Researcher (analyze market efficiency, information impact)
Avid investor (trades currency, stocks, arts, basically anything)
Artist (paints in mixed media, jewelry and clothes designer)
This blog page is designed to share my serious or less serious economics and finance insights with everyone.
in 2015, I created a Coffee Cost of Living (CCL) measure to highlight the Depressing differences in living standards across countries with a cup of coffee. Our current addiction is COFFEE. Almost everyone is drinking coffee or tea and would like to be able to afford at least a cup of nice coffee a day. But who can afford it? It is maybe time to update it in 2021. Since now my traveling is basically zero, please do not hesitate to me the cost of coffee in a cafe in your home time. I need to collect new data :)
In the US (Canada), the monthly coffee affordability is 1083 (1066) cups. This is based on the $1.95 (2.25 Canadian dollar) price for a tall black and median monthly income of $2,200 per person (based on annual income of $26,000 in 2014 ). In the China, the monthly coffee affordability is 150 cups. This calculation is based on the CNY 30 (Chinese Yuan) price for a tall black from Starbucks (only available in major cities as of 2015) and average monthly income of CNY4350 per person (based on annual income of CNY52000 (about USD 8,000 in 2014). Since the median income is not readily available, this estimate is quite positive based on the average number which is skewed because of the extreme high earners. The number of coffee's affordability is even lower in some of the Central and Eastern European countries (CEE), which may be of surprise to many of us.
COFFEE INDEX FOR THE WORLD – A NEW COST OF LIVING MEASURE BY ZRHUSZAR
Over the years, I traveled across over 50 countries and hundreds of cities and I was always looking for the next coffee shop. In most cities nowadays you can find a Starbucks or Costa. These companies have great global presence and they can be easily recognized (although they may not provide my desired Cup of […]
EUROPEAN SAVING CRISIS (2019 update)
Most European Defined benefits (DB ) pensions have negative cash-flows as reported in 2019. And the situation has not improved with the covid pandemic. Steady or stable employment is declining, contract jobs are on the rise and "gamified" investment may not solve the pension needs of millennials with rising home prices.
COST OF COFFEE: CEE VS ASIA
The Cost of Coffee Index reveals that based on the monthly disposable income, a person with average income in Hungary can afford 150 cups of long black Coffee (at Costa or Starbucks) while in Singapore a person with average income can afford about 1550 cups of Starbucks coffee (In Singapore cost of coffee is about […]
COFFEE INDEX FOR EUROPE
As I mentioned before in a number of earlier posts, sometimes we have different (or no view) at all how well people live in other countries. With this new coffee affordability index, I aim to provide some new insights about the bad and good economic situations at a glance. Especially in case of the European […]
AMERICAS COFFEE INDEX
Americas Coffee Index: Why big mac index, when we don’t really eat big mac anymore? We also show significant variation in coffee prices and coffee affordability in countries in the Americas. Peru has amazing coffee, still their citizens cannot really afford the “fancy coffee shops” . If you want to red more about Peru coffee […]
SHORT SELLING AND SEC LENDING IN SINGAPORE
While limited short selling is done in Singapore, it is actually not that expensive (but still quite risky). In the current volatile market conditions, investors may want to trade on the downside by selling securities based on expected price decline. This is possible, even if you do not own the shares, by short selling. You […]
STARBUCKS PRICES, ACROSS THE WORLD IN 2013
A Wall Street Journal article in 2013 published coffee prices across countries (like the previously popular big-mac index). The article has shows that in terms of US dollars you had to fork out the most in Scandinavia and Russia (not at all surprising). But interestingly, the cup of coffee was surprisingly expensive in Greece and in […]
HUNGARY – HAPPINESS – AND MY COFFEE INDEX
“Money, while it cannot buy happiness, is an important means to achieving higher living standards” – a quote by OECD. In Hungary, the average household net-adj. disposable income per cap is USD 15 442 a year, less than 60% of the OECD average of USD 25 908 a year. (There is also a considerable gap between the richest and poorest – […]
“COFFEE LOVES US BACK”
“Coffee, said the Napoleon-era French diplomat Talleyrand, should be hot as hell, black as the devil, pure as an angel, sweet as love.” Coffee is everywhere, through history and across the world. And increasingly, science is demonstrating that its popularity is a good thing. Harvard scientists have for years put coffee under the microscope. Last […]
SHADOW BANKING (AGAIN)
While shadow banks (or nontraditional lending institutions) disappeared for a while after the global financial crisis (GFC), now they are back with full force. …… in the aftermath of the GFC, regulators have been actively monitoring banks risk, causing banks to shy away from risky lending… giving the room for nonbanks again … in 2013-2014, according […]
THE "RISE" OF THE CCPs …
… finally after years of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the Dodd Frank Act, there is increasing central clearing in Europe for securities lending as well. The Deutsche Burse Groups’ clearing Eurex gears up with the help of Clearstream on some front. Eurex offers unique securities lending & borrowing (SLB) market with straight-through processing […]