Alessandro Foti incontra i clienti a Perugia

Well, first of all, the fact that she is not a banker is perhaps not such a negative thing – I speak against the category, more of a joke than anything else. Certainly a sign of a desire for continuity with what was the great discontinuity brought by Draghi. Because Draghi's great availability was to have the courage to take paths that no one had ever dared to take. A few years ago, thinking about the concept of negative rates, quantitative easing – which in simple terms means a gigantic injection of liquidity into the system – was something no one would ever have imagined, which brought us into unexplored territories, but it was inevitable if we wanted to avoid a possible very great recession at the European level and beyond. Draghi said 'whatever it takes' to defend the euro. He succeeded? I would say yes, because the euro, despite everything, is alive and well and present. And the important thing is that now everyone is quite aware that it is a point of no return, a path marked for the future. How much freedom of maneuver does Lagarde have? How much will Draghi's legacy count? It will count a lot because it is clear that Lagarde... now.

Let's stay on the quality, arrested mister? To the dear, to the financial company, so it wouldn't be known... However, the wealth is certain staticity... Central... exists in this effect also European, Japanese, and also American... This truth that is on the market... In this 10 trillion of Italian wealth, there are 1,500 billion in current accounts. So let's talk a little bit about the wealth of Italians, because this is the aspect. We are famous in the world for many beautiful things, but today maybe it's not the right place to talk about artistic beauties and food, so let's talk a bit more about financial topics. When we talk about finance in Italy, we are famous for two things: first, as I said, we have a lot of debt – our 2,362 billion – and second, we are rich. So, we said real estate wealth, let's leave that aside for a moment, which is about 5,500 billion. Then there is financial wealth, of which 800 billion are the financial holdings of entrepreneurs who have a company and its shares, so we remove that because we cannot consider it savings. Then there is about 1,000 billion, one trillion, which is the severance pay, pension funds, let's remove that. Then we have remaining about 2,600 billion euros of immediately available savings, which is still higher than the total public debt. Of these 2,600 billion, 1,500 lie in current accounts in the form of liquidity. That means essentially that about two-thirds of the Italian public debt is parked in current accounts. So we can summarize: Italians are extraordinary savers, they are excellent savers, but they are poor investors.

It was also said earlier that in a moment of uncertainty like this, with negative rates, with many things that don't work – look at what happened in Lebanon, the tensions in England, Brexit is now becoming a joke, but it's a problem, what is happening in the United States, the lack of growth – well, if I have some money, I keep it in the current account, but are we sure? If the projectionist could send me the second slide, let's start to see. Here we see that we are talking about twenty years, more or less the twentieth anniversary. We tried to represent a little what happened in these 20 years. The dark blue line essentially shows the world economy index, the MSCI World, which groups the main companies in the world. So it's a kind of summary of the world economy. In this index we find many companies that many of you know well: maybe Budweiser, the beer you drink when you go to a pizzeria with friends; Nestlé, which makes Nesquik for breakfast; or Apple; or L'Oréal, which makes creams that ladies use in the evening to become even more beautiful for the next day, and so on. This is the world economy. In these 20 years, with ups and downs, it has given a return of 520 percent, which is truly impressive. The question is: did this happen because the world had no problems? Absolutely not. If we look at the negative events summarized here, we had currency crises, the biggest terrorist attack in living memory, the two most important buildings in the financial capital of the world were destroyed, the failure of one of the largest investment banks, the pandemic that was supposed to block international travel and trade, but no one remembers it anymore. And then earthquakes, wars, devaluations. So, what does this mean? It means that the world by definition is complex, and if it has always been and always will be. The history of centuries is made of wars, plagues, famines. Despite this, the world has grown. So the concept is: at this moment the situation is complex, yes, but not much more complex than it was until the day before yesterday. The other thing we see is that flat line, like a flat encephalogram of someone who has taken a blow to the head, which is essentially what happened to liquidity. Because clearly many savers, continuously worried by this avalanche of negative events, have preferred to stay with their lovely liquidity in the current account. The result: a decrease in purchasing power of 34 percent, because there is a travel companion that accompanies us implacably: inflation, which continues to work while we are here, slowly eroding our savings. To understand: two brothers who had inherited 100 euros at the beginning of this period, if one had invested in the world economy, he would have more than 600; the other, worried day by day about what was happening around him, left them in the current account and now would have 66. The difference between becoming rich and returning poor. That's the difference.

But this is beautiful: 'the difference between becoming rich and returning poor.' It's impressive: 54%, 520% – the difference between the two brothers. In case you might suspect that this was a special 20-year period, maybe it's a law. Put the first slide, even more interesting. Here we have extended the formula. Yes, it's true, we started from the 1970s, and also here, neglecting all the disasters that happened in the meantime – I don't want to make the evening sad by remembering all the negative events – and here the world economy has grown by almost 7,000 percent. So we removed liquidity because we know more, and we reviewed that blue bubble: purchasing power that was lost by 91 percent. So the two brothers: one would find with 100 euros that would become 700,000, and the other would find himself with a handful of flies. We always have the famous safe haven. Well, I believe in them, but not in that order. Safe havens: buy a gold bar or a painting? Let's talk about gold, because gold is the safe haven par excellence. 840% return? But if I compare it to 7,000%, it's normal because a safe haven, as the word says, serves to take shelter. If now I open weather forecasts and they tell me that in four hours there will be a thunderstorm in Perugia, what do I do? I close myself in the house and if possible I don't go out. After the thunderstorm is over, it's desirable that the weather clears up. When it ends, what does he do? He resumes his daily life. Staying systematically invested in a safe haven is like someone who after the thunderstorm remains closed in the house waiting, because he is worried about the next thunderstorm that will come. And there are friends, the bus, with excuse, 'Look, it's nice weather, everything is fine,' what do you do? 'I know that sooner or later another thunderstorm will come, so I stay closed in the house.' And so you spend your whole life in the house, while your friend goes around and clearly takes advantage of the opportunities that the world and real life offer. So, is it that simple to become rich? Just invest in the MSCI World index? It would seem so. But there are some 'buts'. Let's go back to the second slide. Because there are some 'buts'. Actually, let's scroll further, because there is one that I think is even more interesting.

Here we have the 'buts'. This is the fear: when you open the newspaper, and there are the journalists who by definition are there to bring a load of bad news. So one opens the newspaper and sees the headlines. The fear that accompanies us: 'I am surely the one who, when he invests, the market loses 54% or 49% the next day.' Because if tomorrow morning there is a big market correction, I already imagine the headlines: 'Another 29'. But in reality, in the last twenty years, we have had two such corrections: at the beginning of 2000, the market lost 54% (the dot-com bubble), and in 2008, the famous subprime crisis, the market lost 49%. Clearly, if one invested the day before, it's not the most exciting situation. So what prevents us? First, it's evident that one must have a reasonable time horizon. If you invest today and then disinvest when the market falls, you get scared and disinvest the next day, that's a problem. Second, you must have understood the basic concepts: you need to invest in the world economy because one of the main problems is the lack of diversification. The world economy, we are sure it will grow, because in this room there are many entrepreneurs and professionals, and I think it's intuitive to understand why the world economy as a whole cannot but grow. First, there is demographic pressure: in a few years, whether we like it or not, there will be a few billion more people. We shouldn't be fooled by the negative demographics of Italy, but the world is growing. More people, more consumption, more GDP. Second, there is a natural search for well-being: everyone wants to live better. In Italy, a hundred years ago it was normal to have a shared bathroom in the courtyard, and now if someone proposed that lifestyle, you would think it's bizarre. Imagine that in countries that are starting to grow, people finally have the ambition to have their own bathroom, their own sink. So there are companies preparing to produce this stuff in Indonesia. The percentage of Indonesians who brush their teeth with toothpaste every morning? 1%. So, producing toothbrushes, etc. Then there is evolution: every day millions of entrepreneurs wake up with the goal of making their money more than the interest rate they pay to banks. Those who don't succeed are expelled from the market. The world economy is the synthesis of the winners. So, the economy as a whole, with ups and downs, grows. When it can't grow, it finds antibodies. The most recent demonstration is the injection that Mario Draghi made, an antibody that he transmitted to us. So, the important thing is to be diversified, because you don't know where growth will come from. At the beginning of the 1900s, Argentina was among the ten richest countries in the world, now it's not. So, we are discussing whether the world economy will grow next year by 3% or 2.8%, but it will grow. Some countries will grow by 6%, some will shrink, some will grow by 0.%. So, you need to have a clear concept of diversification and time horizon.

And then there is the final obstacle: the main enemy is emotionality. Because we can talk here with these beautiful speeches, and one leaves convinced, 'that's beautiful, I must invest there.' Then when he starts and finds himself in a correction of this kind, and the media bombardment begins, he gets scared and says, 'No, I don't feel like it.' That's the obstacle. If I go down 54%, I don't see the end of the tunnel. Because I don't have the ability, like in the movie Back to the Future, to see in advance what will happen. I see only the negative. Meanwhile, everything is accompanied by catastrophic predictions: 'the world will end.' So this is what prevents us. So what should I do? Did I buy on September 14, 2008, the day Lehman Brothers failed? Let's put it that way. So, how can I respond to this legitimate fear? Everyone says, 'I am sure that the day I invest, I will be the unlucky investor who loses 54% the next day.' If I am blocked by this kind of thing, what we suggest is an approach, and personally I follow it too with my own money – because people ask me: 'What is your approach?' The approach is what we call the 'decumulo' approach. If the projectionist can go ahead a bit, here it is. What does it mean? It's a very simple argument. First, the healthiest thing is to say: 'I have a long-term objective, I invest in the world economy for all these reasons.' But if I don't feel like it because I fear being the one who incurs a loss, we simulated two very unlucky investors who managed to exactly hit a bear market. So the first case: this gentleman invests exactly the day before the crash begins. What happens? In this case, what we suggest is to start investing gradually. Instead of investing immediately all 100 euros, you initially park them in a very low-risk investment, or better yet, a capital-guaranteed insurance product, and then systematically month after month, in an automated manner, you invest in the world economy. So you don't lose the opportunity, but you do it gradually, and any further market declines help us invest at lower rates. So even in a dramatic situation, you still have a return that is clearly higher than the alternative of keeping liquidity in the current account: 4% after 5 years, 7% after 5 years in the two cases. If we go to the next slide, we see that if we extend this strategy longer, we are still talking about two investors who invested at the market peak and took the full brunt of two very heavy corrections comparable to those of 1929. In the end, plus 15% after ten years, and plus 72% in the second case. On the other hand, the alternative would have been leaving the money in the account and seeing your purchasing power decrease by 34%. So this is what it is.

Well, half of the problem, but the ECB doesn't solve it. Because if you are a banker who manages a bank, half of your remuneration is paid in shares of the bank you manage. The regulator wants to be sure that you manage the bank with extreme care, so they want your money to be involved. So half of what I earn is paid to me in bank shares. Then on the other side, I have windows where I am not forced to keep the bank shares for life; I can sell them. But I made a choice of consistency, so I cannot go around the world explaining to all investors how beautiful the bank is that I manage, and then go home and sell the shares they should buy. So what do I do? I keep the shares I receive and I will sell them the day after I am no longer managing this bank. So that's half of the problem. The other half: since with this approach I have a large exposure to the market – because the shares of a bank follow the performance of the economy as a whole – I must necessarily have a prudent approach, otherwise my wife won't even let me into the house anymore. So I have to worry about the case where exactly that situation occurs. So what do I do on the other half? I do exactly this: as the money comes in, I park it in a conservative solution, and then progressively, systematically month after month, I disinvest from that conservative solution and invest in the world market, in the world economy. That's how I invest my money. But I'm not going to give you a headline for tomorrow morning. If I had that divinatory ability, I wouldn't be here; I would be managing a huge fortune, I would have become the richest person in the world.

First of all, our situation is not strange. Being a public company – what is a public company? It is a company that does not have a reference shareholder, but the owner is the market. This may seem strange in Italy because we have a poorly developed capital market, but it is the norm abroad. All the large companies we know – Coca-Cola, for example, or Unilever – are public companies, companies owned by the market. So being a public company has a great advantage because it is a very efficient form of corporate governance. It gives the best guarantees not only to its shareholders but also to the other two owners of the company: the employees and the customers. For a very simple reason: what does the market want? The market wants two things: it simply wants the company to achieve significant and growing profits over time, but that are lasting and sustainable. So a public company is forced by its investors to behave in a way that I can say is with the foresight of a good family man.

To manage the company as if it must remain on the market for the next 100 years. This is a great guarantee for customers, because we cannot afford to take shortcuts, for example, to take advantage of our customers. Because if tomorrow morning we started taking advantage of our customers, the market would take us by the ear and say, 'No, look, I didn't buy your shares for this, because if you do that, your business will not be sustainable.' Speaking of reliability, coming here to say that Fineco is a robust, solid company is like asking the innkeeper if the wine is good. So we prefer to let the numbers speak. The solidity of banks is very easily evaluated by looking at the numbers. There is a parameter that establishes how solid and robust a bank is considered by the market: how many times the bank's book value is valued by the market. So, our parent company, like many other banks, is valued by the market at half of its book value. The market believes these banks are worth less than their book value. Why? Because Fineco is valued by the market at more than 6 times book value. I would say that based on this parameter, Fineco is the most solid bank in Italy.

For the client, from an operational point of view, absolutely nothing changes. The bank continues to be exactly the same as before. What will change progressively, and clients will notice over time, is that being outside a large, articulated, complex group like Unicredit will make us even faster, more agile, more efficient. So clients can expect a quality of service and efficiency even higher than the already extraordinarily high level we had in the past.

Surely it is not a balanced distribution. Italians are famous for overinvesting in real estate. Italy, together with Greece, has the highest rate of home ownership. 82% of Italian families own at least one home. For comparison, in Germany only 50% of families own a home, in the United States 60%. So in Italy, it's 82%. It's normal to have a first, second, even third home. It becomes an investment method. For years, it has been one of the preferred investments of Italians.

The real estate market must be approached with a minimum of rationality. The real estate market is worth as much as it can produce income. Let's see what makes a real estate market thriving. First, the demographic trend. Countries with growing demographics tend to have a lively real estate market because more inhabitants mean more houses. Already here we have a problem, because Italy reached its demographic peak in 2015. Since 2015, the Italian population has been decreasing. We lose about 100,000 inhabitants per year, including immigration. So the Italian population decreases by about 100,000 per year. The second element that drives the real estate market is GDP growth. If GDP grows a lot, the real estate market is more lively. If GDP grows little, take the example of Milan, which is one of the few healthy real estate markets in Italy. The GDP of the Milan area, about 45,000 inhabitants, grows by about 4% per year, but this is not true for the rest of Italy.

The third element that makes a real estate market is if there is scarcity, if there is more demand than supply. But it's clear that if we are already in a situation where those who could buy houses have bought them, and even too many, then the demand is physically missing, added to the demographic aspect. Then there is the fiscal aspect. The lower the taxes, the more a market... Italy until recently benefited from the fact that houses were not taxed. Then at a certain point they started to tax them. Now they are taxed, but the level of taxation on real estate in Italy remains lower than in many other European countries. So, taxes on houses, at best, remain as they are, but they could rise further. And one last element: in Italy, one of the components that supported the real estate market was the disparity between the market value of houses and the cadastral income, which allowed the recycling of the so-called black economy, often through the real estate market. Now this is no longer possible because there is almost alignment. So all the components are against the real estate market in Italy.

So there is this huge cake, and this represents a big problem because more than half of that 10,000 billion... a very large part of this wealth is not able to produce income. On the contrary, it produces expenses, taxes. But the real estate market continues to be very attractive for emotional and psychological reasons. Is it a safe haven? Not really. We saw before that financial markets are very real, not a paper economy. When you invest in a stock index, you become a shareholder of companies around the world. It's like having shares of Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Apple, Unicredit... all real and tangible. The defect and the merit of financial markets is that all this is in real time. Someone tells you what it's worth. This can create anxiety because in a minute you can be richer or poorer. For a house, no one tells you in real time what it's worth. Out of sight, out of mind. The real estate market in Italy has lost almost 30% on average over the last 10 years, but there is not full awareness because a person passes by their house every day and is convinced that it is still worth at least what they paid for it.

Another thing that is neglected is the concept of liquidity. That is very relevant. I can invest in the world economy with a long time horizon. But then at some point an event occurs that completely changes my life, and I need immediate liquid availability. In financial markets, with a click. In the real estate market, in Milan they say the market is solid, but if I want to sell a property, I can't sell it in less than six months. Not in six seconds, six months. And let's not talk about other places. So these are all elements where the emotional component plays a significant role. We are all convinced that our apartment is the most beautiful, but we can't find another person who thinks the same when we want to sell. Even a simple thing: if we go to a client and say, 'Unfortunately, this year the markets didn't go well, your portfolio is down 5%,' it's a catastrophe, a tragedy. Tomorrow morning, buy a property in Milan, in a healthy market. Today you buy a house in Milan, then six months later, with the market still lively, you change your mind and want to sell. In the best case, between one thing and another, you lose 20% in expenses, taxes, and the bid-ask spread. If we propose to our client, 'Now I'll make you invest in something where, if everything goes well, you lose 20% when you disinvest,' I think they would beat us up.

A colleague of Pacifici's told me the three things that matter when you have an apartment: location, location, location. For example, because unfortunately the value of real estate is not determined by its beauty. That's the dramatic thing. It is determined exactly by where it is. So if my property is in a very lively economic area, with beautiful infrastructure that allows anyone to move quickly, it will have value. If I have a beautiful property in a place that is lost in the middle of nowhere, no matter how beautiful, it is worth nothing. So a house in the center of Milan does not have the same value as the same house in Valore Albania. We take the same house, built by the same architect, exactly identical. Put one in the center of Milan and another in the center of Tirana. They will have very different values.

Cryptocurrencies are certainly a fascinating topic. But let's not bore the audience with too technical talk. Let's come to the most interesting part: cryptocurrency is seen as a safe haven. The difference between cryptocurrency and normal currency is that a normal currency has a central bank that guarantees it, but reserves the right to print as much as it wants. That's exactly what has been done in recent years. Draghi, Powell, all the central bank governors decided to print money. So it's evident that the law of supply and demand applies: the more there is in circulation, the less this currency is potentially worth. So the investor always fears that his 100 euros might be worth less tomorrow because the ECB printed more. Cryptocurrency is governed by an algorithm, the famous blockchain, which establishes in advance the maximum amount that can be in circulation. So it is a finite good. That's the same reason gold is chosen as a safe haven: because there is a limit to its extractive capacity and circulation. But then, the problem is that a currency, to be considered such, must also be spendable. If I have a currency, I must be able to go to a car dealership and say, 'Good morning, I'd like to buy a car with my portfolio of Bitcoin.' In 99.9% of cases, the dealer would say, 'No, come back with euros, because I don't want to see Bitcoin.' Why? Because despite the technology behind it, blockchain should be a guarantee in itself, but in the end, people want to understand who is the ultimate guarantor.

And we come back to the discussion. For example, we have a central bank, the World Bank, that started producing its own cryptocurrency and put it into circulation. The Petro, from the central bank of Venezuela. As you can imagine, no one wants it because the Venezuelan central bank does not enjoy much credibility. You can't buy a car with it. So what we will likely see, and what central banks are working on, is to start thinking about issuing, alongside normal currency, a cryptocurrency. So in the future, we could have the crypto-dollar, crypto-euro, and so on. This will open up very interesting scenarios. At the moment, honestly, the true value of Bitcoin, for example, the most popular one, is actually represented by the fact that it has become a sort of no-man's land, the medium of exchange used to settle positions mainly among traffickers, extortionists, money launderers, terrorists, and the like. So all of this, and especially the value we give to a currency or gold, there is a fundamental aspect: trust, and the ultimate payer. Because gold is a convention. We established that it represents value. But if we look at the intrinsic value of gold from an industrial standpoint, it is much lower than the market value. So it was established centuries ago. There were peoples who used seashells as a medium of exchange. So they established that the seashell was representative of value. So it depends on the point of view. But having a beautiful rare seashell doesn't convince me.

So let's look at this. Speaking of lack of planning, let's stay in the field of investments. Certainly one of the biggest problems is that when a typical saver, one of the biggest problems we have when we face a new client, is that he arrives and immediately asks, 'How much does it yield?' It's a bit like going into a real estate agency and saying, 'I'd like a nice house that doesn't cost too much.' The agent would ask, 'Do you want it in the city center, by the sea, in the hills?' So the first real question the saver should ask himself is, 'Why do I save?' Saving is a sacrifice. If I earn 100 and spend 80, I put 20 aside. I sacrifice myself because I deny myself the possibility of buying something, or taking a vacation. I do it because I have a goal. So the first thing is to answer that question. If one answers that, he will discover that often the goal is long-term. Let me list a series of reasons. There is the one who saves to guarantee a pension income at least equal to what he had, because he is not convinced that the pension will allow him that. That's a long horizon. Or there is the one who says, 'I want my heirs, since I think they won't be able to accumulate similar wealth, to be able to maintain their lifestyle.' So the transfer of wealth in a way that it can produce income streams in the future. Or even because sometimes the great mistake is made: I have had clients who say, 'I'm already advanced in years,' but we have to consider that life expectancy is changing dramatically. A person now at 70 can easily have a life expectancy of another 30 years. 30 years is a very long time horizon. We have seen the disaster that can happen if you leave money in a checking account for 20 years. What do you end up with? A patrimony that loses 34%, almost 50% in value. So these are all aspects to consider.

So, coming back to the concept, one of the answers to this question is multiple: a very long time horizon, but also some shorter goals. I have to send my son to university in a few years, I have to cover that. Or I may also need a certain amount of money to face unforeseen expenses. So it's like a house built on multiple floors. But the fundamental concept is planning. I cannot let myself be driven by the terror of what I read in the newspapers or see on TV day after day, because that would discourage me from planning my investments and savings correctly. So why are Italians so bad? We are a country that, with Japan, is first in the world for savings capacity. A year ago, they were ahead. And then there is a central bank survey that says that this extraordinary people of ants, seventh economy in the world, second manufacturing in Europe, for financial knowledge in the world is between Togo and Mali. Don't laugh, it's a drama. This is a drama. Surely it's a peculiarity because generally there is a correlation: high savings, high financial culture; low savings, low financial culture. Italy stands out as an exception: high savings, low financial culture. This is also the result of many memories of our recent history.

If we go back to the 90s, we return to the past. This country was characterized by a period from the 70s to the early 80s of very high inflation, a closed market. In the 70s, we could not invest abroad. If you wanted to go abroad, you had to specify exactly where you were going, how much you would spend. You could buy all the bonds you wanted. So, not having the possibility to invest in the real economy of the world and with very high inflation, Italians managed as they could. From this comes the great propensity to invest in real estate, Italian government bonds. At that time, bonds yielded double digits, and with inflation even higher, the real return was negative. But the optical illusion of seeing 18% returns on BOTs, while inflation was 21%, meant you were actually losing 3%. Inflation is like fine dust. Fine dust is poisonous, you breathe it every day in the city center, but you don't see it, it doesn't smell, you don't feel it. So inflation is like that: you don't notice it at 1.2% per year, but it accumulates. And that 18% return was an illusion. So this has led to a stratification of lack of financial culture, which is now becoming a big problem because although Italians have a lot of savings, our capacity to accumulate wealth is slowing down. The combination of low economic growth and demographic decline is leading to a slowdown. So Italians can no longer afford to manage their savings poorly. It's a luxury they cannot afford.

Just to give a dimension of what we are talking about: returning to the 2,000-2,600 billion of immediately available savings, we are talking about 1,500 billion. Let's talk about what is in current accounts. If these 1,500 billion sitting in current accounts were managed a little more civilly, with a long-term return of just 1% per year, that would mean a wealth effect of 15 billion euros per year. Here we are not talking about a budget maneuver of 34 billion, we have an effect like that. On the other hand, leaving these 1,500 billion in current accounts, due to inflation, has exactly the opposite effect: the famous hidden tax. Every year, the purchasing power of these 1,500 billion decreases by 15 billion euros.

I've noted these two figures: 1,500 billion in current accounts, 2,462 billion in public debt. And it reminds me of that day in 1992, and that nice person, Giuliano Amato, who translated these data. An experience like that is a risk we concretely face. I remind you that one summer night, they put their hands on our current accounts with effects that were not healthy for our mood. Now, I think the probability is relatively remote, but in 1992 it happened because Italy was at that point. Italy was not in the euro, it was the lira. The great crisis of confidence brought us to the brink of bankruptcy. We were no longer able to meet our commitments to purchase foreign currency to keep our economic system going. So if it hadn't been for the intervention over the weekend, we would have had a default situation on Monday. So that was a maneuver to avoid that. Clearly, maneuvers of this kind, a wealth tax, are done when you are in a situation of extreme emergency. And it's clear that wealth taxes are not announced. Because if tomorrow morning someone says, 'Look, in six months I'm going to impose a wealth tax,' it would create a 'break the ranks' situation. So if you need money immediately, you have to go for the easy stuff. For example, if you want to impose a wealth tax on real estate, the owner says, 'I have real estate but no euros, I'll bring you some bricks.' Or if someone has a portfolio of funds, they would have to sell them, at what price, when, how? It would be a pandemonium. But liquid assets, current accounts, are ready to be hit. No problem, overnight. So it's evident that leaving money in a checking account is the worst choice you can make.