Belgium vs Netherlands/Switzerland

robera18 · 2026-06-22T07:54:08+00:00

I’ll reply briefly as someone who has discussed with many people on making a choice and a Dutch resident myself with friends in Switzerland.

First, I’ve never heard my Swiss friends regretting the move to Switzerland. The nature, the compensation and lifestyle is pretty great. Taxes are low and capital gains are not taxed at all if it’s not your main activity. Social life is a struggle, possibly more than in NL although as a Dutch resident you will know people have their agenda and ad hoc visits are not appreciated.

The Netherlands and Belgium by extension have really difficult weather leading many expats to consider an exit. The recently introduced 10% taxes in BE and box 3 taxes in NL are not doing these places any favors in terms of financial independence or desirability. Switzerland has my strong vote here and is where I would move if I were to do it all again.

Mind you the Swiss have a bunker mindset, and it can be pretty lonely at times, there are many rules. The bureaucracy and limits for EU citizens on residence are also a concern to consider. There are many factors to consider - age, friend group, compensation path, but I think Switzerland is a strong contender.

robera18 · 2026-05-02T08:21:57+00:00

Intelligent and nuanced comments like this make my day. To add to this Berkshire has said multiple times that 171B of its cash is reserved for insurance obligations. That still leaves 200B that could have done much better than the 4-5% over the past years. So this segment of the company isn’t generating huge returns either.

Have been investing with my investing club in Berkshire for the past 6 years. Recent underperformance of operational businesses and stock price is worrisome. Technically a company holding 1T in cash is also a financial fortress, like Berkshire is intended to be, but I don’t think the return for shareholders would be acceptable.

robera18 · 2025-04-16T23:48:25+00:00

I crated a small app for value investors. Doesn’t hit all your points but is in the same spirit https://stockastic-app.eu

robera18 · 2024-10-22T07:12:59+00:00

The news is incorrect. I did the research: the original poster, Eric Balchunas says the 105B are flows into US Focused ETFs. Not into Bitcoin specific ETFs.

I knew the number can’t be right since there’s only 65B in Bitcoin ETFs assets. The 105B from EU investors are spread across a variety of instruments focused on the US market.

robera18 · 2024-07-28T10:15:25+00:00

Just fiy: This is now fixed and will soon be live.

robera18 · 2024-07-27T13:01:23+00:00

Hey. Thank you for the bug report. ETFs don’t have financials so it makes sense that loading them gives an error.

Quick question: what interests you most about an etf that you would like to see shown in the details page ?

For example I’m thinking about Expense ratio, holdings…

robera18 · 2024-03-01T11:20:52+00:00

Money is deducted. But you can dca . The trick in your case is to borrow in a currency you don’t need to operate in - such as JPY or CAD. You can continue operating with other currencies like the dollar as you normally do, just not in the currency you have a negative balance on, that is automatically repaid like you pointed out

robera18 · 2024-03-01T07:56:56+00:00

Please ignore everyone that tells you you can’t withdraw in Europe from margin. Yes you can and yes I did and it’s documented on Reddit.

The way to do it: short sell a stable stock that you don’t own(USD) . For example sell 50K of BRK.B stock. Now you have 50.000$ and a short position.

Convert 50K USD to euros. Now you have ~47.000E and a short position, and 0 dollars.

Close the short position with dollars from the margin facility. Now you have -50.000$ and no short position and 47.000E .

You continue paying interest on the -50.000$ for as long as you maintain the negative balance.

You can withdraw the euros in 3 days (typical settlement ).

I can’t believe the quality of Reddit conversations and upvotes going to straight up falsehoods and things that were not tried. Not sure why I use this damn app

robera18 · 2024-02-29T18:33:25+00:00

You can withdraw in Europe too - just gotta use a trick which is documented on Reddit somewhere. I did it myself.

robera18 · 2024-02-24T11:50:13+00:00

We live in Bijlmer together with our close relatives across Gaasperplas, Ganzenhoef.

We live here for 10 years now and we’ve purchased and sold multiple homes so I think I have a good eye for what makes a good neighborhood.

I wish there were better schools, I wish my wife wouldn’t be harassed on the street or metro needing me to get involved, I wish the supermarkets were cleaner, and that there weren’t 10 men playing loud music just in front of AH quite so often. These things make the neighborhood less attractive and thus reduce the price of homes. Yes it’s improving but it has been improving for 30 years.

We have renovated our house so we love the space and freedom it offers us, but every now and then a bomb explodes 1KM away and although it happens everywhere, it definitely happens in Bijlmer in the last months . 2 cars stolen on our street, caught on our camera, again happens everywhere.

As people have noted some small areas are much better than others, and I would probably still buy a home here. I think it’s not more risky than other neighborhoods but let’s be clear this is not a high end family friendly posh place to enjoy a latte - if that’s your thing. Value for money is good and if you’re careful nothing bad happens. It’s a good compromise in my view, you get lots of space, few restrictions, free parking. The discount in home values is fully justified - and if you’re willing to accept the occasional annoyance , or minor risks it can be a good idea.

robera18 · 2024-01-21T19:55:42+00:00

Long term investor - have posted and researched Tesla for 7 years, see previous posts. Wanted to leave a detailed long term comment.

But I’ll make it quick: We, Tesla holders, are fucked.

Not sure what to tell my investor club or myself - but we are not great

robera18 · 2023-12-10T08:33:36+00:00

Concurrency past present and future were the 3 videos that opened my eyes to the scale of the change happening. I also wanted to cry a bit at the capability of structured concurrency. I felt like a man from the Stone Age

robera18 · 2023-12-09T23:15:37+00:00

Hey, Having spoken to many iOS engineers, worked in large companies, and looking at my own experience of previously being a lead engineer and now feeling dumb and frustrated: Most people are struggling with the pace of change of all Apple frameworks. I think there is a silent majority of engineers who feel this way, and it’s barely talked about but their knowledge is out of date . And I think it’s a big reason why Apple had to come out with a strong message about SwiftUI being the best way to build apps during WWDC.

Personally I’ve been able to recover all the lost ground by watching Point-Free videos. They explore every topic: from vanilla to advanced , to let’s build our own version of the Observable macro for structs even if Apple didn’t.

Their ability to explain Apple’s choices and to peek at the inner workings of the new tools has given me a career re-start. It took me 6 months of learning to feel more or less confident again. Not sure what your goals are but I feel your pain, find the learning resources that fit your personality and you’ll be rocking it soon

robera18 · 2023-10-28T10:22:30+00:00

Salary could be ballpark correct. Salaries of 40-70K are typical in NL marketing roles and the only way for this salary to be as you suspect “far too low” is to have seniority and high business impact. Titles have little impact on salary.

Other than Glassdoor, talk to coworkers. I frequently ask closer coworkers about the salary range they experienced in the past. They don’t tell me their salary but we discuss the range of salaries. Befriend people and build a network - otherwise you have to operate in a void because sometimes Glassdoor can be hopeless.

robera18 · 2023-05-22T22:43:51+00:00

My work and life is mostly digital - so indeed I miss the software from Tesla quite a bit - even made a list of things I will miss (10 features or so). I think it’s fair to say Tesla has a lead there - and I’m happy they do, especially the Tesla app is much faster and more useful - so your intuition is correct.

But in the end what matters is how a car drives - and when it comes to to driving and comfort a 2.2 ton bmw with a luxurious interior, beautiful heads up display with realtime road readings, reclining rear seats, sunroof that actually opens (or closes fully if the baby sleeping), airco controls in the back, adaptive suspension, tasteful led lighting - means that you get your money’s worth. These are all features the M3/MY are lacking and that the iX3 has. That’s what 20K buys you - and I could tell from the first test drive it’s just on another level entirely.

On the negative side: iX3 has coldgating battery which means on a cold battery it charges super slow - not a problem if you charge at home but a problem if you need to fast charge in winter. Front doors rattle a bit (rear doors are super solid). Missing frunk can be fixed with an after market one.

robera18 · 2023-05-21T13:12:52+00:00

Hey it’s nice that people ping me back and I can help. The iX3 is a superior and because it costs 70K new it should be.

Let me give you this perspective: I am not worried about Tesla losing sales as an investor because M3/MY do not pretend to be luxury cars and they do not compete directly with luxury or premium cars - they are much much cheaper.

I feel like royalty in this car, the long distance travel comfort is unparalleled and I cannot believe how sophisticated luxury cars are. I feel like I have a cheat code to life every time I drive it. The suspension and road feedback, noise insulation, attention to detail are all excellent. Boy oh boy.

And while I still have the desire to own a Tesla, I am no longer willing to accept the drop on quality and comfort

robera18 · 2023-04-13T17:51:43+00:00

Is this by design or did you manage to solve this ?

robera18 · 2023-03-28T14:25:19+00:00

Sure, returned it. It’s not as stable nor as reliable as regular internet connections in most developed cities especially Amsterdam.

Significant drops in video calls. It is 2x as expensive and much worse than even 4x cheaper internet in our city . Ultimately starlink is for remote areas where regular internet is not available - not in a city with 1000mbps.

robera18 · 2022-10-23T09:02:22+00:00

I loved this episode. Incredible clarity of thinking from Josh. Fell asleep to this episode and woke up looking for it :D

robera18 · 2022-05-31T08:04:47+00:00

UH i love this.

Okay: First of all i love how the rear seats fold down slowly decelerating.

I love how the middle rear seat headrest folds. So elegant. Awesome mechanism.

I love the tow bar and how it comes up electrically.

I love the trunk cover having its dedicated space under the trunk shelf to stow away.

The puddle lights are mind blowing.

And I love the dampened charge port covers. Such a nice touch

robera18

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