Incredible Flamingos

Natives of Flanders are called Flamingos in Spanish. Flamingos are also a bird species but apart from the picture here it is not the birds I am about to discuss... It's my compatriots, Dutch speaking inhabitants of Belgium, spread over five provinces and accounting for 60% of the population.

They are also the richest. Not only of Belgium but of all Europeans. Forget about Switzerland and the Swiss... The Flamingos are the richest. Of course the Swiss, carrying centuries long military legacy, guard with their lives the trillions of foreign currency that floats into the country from all over the planet. They pick-up some commission in the process and it is true, the country looks very rich to outsiders, but... it's the stingy Flamingos who have got most individual assets per capita... How do I know, you might wonder. Trust me, I know... I read the papers.

It appears that a research bureau (GfK... anybody heard of them? Google 'em and find out) conducted a study recently on the individual personal savings of Europeans and came up with alarming conclusions about the Flamingos.

It was found that 37% of all Flamingos have savings in the bank of more than 50K euros. That is to say that more than 2.3M Flamingos in Belgium have got more than 50K euro in the bank. This is 4% more than a year ago. Wow!

Per an ING expert the growth is due to the volatile performance of the Bourses in the last few years that convinced risk avert Flamingos to take their diddlies away from equity investing back to the safe haven of savings accounts. In any case the bare statistics put the Flamingo's at the first place in Europe that in itself has an average of 12 percent.

How about the Walloons then, living in the remaining four provinces? Well, traditionally they used to stay behind the Flemish with 25% the previous year but fell further to 19% this year. In other words, there's hardly one million Walloons with savings more than 50K euros. Again, the same ING expert said that in Wallonia the different social layers are far more unequal and those 19% own a lot more than just 50K. If for instance you set the threshold at 100K you might end up with much different conclusions. Who knows? Mind you, the richest of all Belgians is a Walloon, indeed (check Forbes Magazine for details).

The other characteristic of the Flamingos that foreigners are not often aware of is their inherited obsession to build their own brickhouse. Whereas owning a house in The Netherlands is desirable but difficult to realize, in Flanders every citizen is born with 'a brick in his belly'. They've got to built their own brickhouse even if they'd have to give up everything else... they say, a man without a job is not a man... I say, a Flamingo without a brickhouse is not a Flamingo.

How do Flemish people actually achieve that? Have a house and save money in the bank (many still do that in matrasses as we found out few year ago when we had to convert to the Euro from BEF). As an alien to native Flamingos, but having lived for thirty years among them, I can answer that question: (they achieve that) relatively simple.

First and above all, the Flemish are extremely hard workers. They despise the lazy in a way I seldom seen. Whereas on the first morning of annual vacation normal people wake up by... midday, Flamingos get off their bed and start moaning the loan by 6am. True story! Umglaublich!

Second reason is that Flamingos love to save their money. Far more often than I wished I've seen many rich Flamingos live like gypsies. The richer they get the stingier they become. Whereas Greeks or Italians the moment they own some extra bucks they walk into malls and buy stuff to show-off and be seen as big spenders owning the latest and brightest, Flamingos will put the extra eurobills on a 'spaarboekje', cute little savings passbook... As they say in Switzerland: 'money talks... wealth whispers'.

(to be cont'd)