Archives for May 2017

According to the Picture of the Nation 2017 report, with Israel’s aging population and rising costs across the board, its “current sources of economic growth are not sustainable.”

The country ranks 22nd out of 34 of the OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) regarding GDP and takes the 24th spot within the market income poverty rate. Among developed countries, Israel has the highest percentage of its population living below the poverty line.

“The past year has seen a decline in unemployment and a large rise in GDP,” but “unfortunately, it appears that this positive trend will not continue and new sources of growth must be found,” said the report.

The Taub Center also described Israel’s four percent GDP growth as an “outlier and not a trend.”

A separate report which was released earlier this month by the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research looked at economic trends over the entire 69-year history of the country. It concluded the economy shows deep-seated and long-term shortcomings that threaten to weaken the army and constitute an “existential threat” to the country’s future.

In terms of GDP, Israel has been falling further and further behind the G7 average since the mid-1970s, with a more than threefold increase having developed in the gap between them. This, according to the report, “reflects steadily widening disparity between what an employed person living in Israel can attain and what that person could attain in the countries that are pulling away from Israel.”

Professor Dan Ben-David, founder and chair of the Shoresh Institution and co-author of the report, has warned if Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “continues to ignore the future” the country could be facing a catastrophe of massive proportions.

Netanyahu has recently held some meetings with Israeli media outlets, claiming the reports do not reflect “what the public feels.”

“It is an industry of despair. Where they see unemployment, I see full employment. Where they see an economy in ruin, I see a flourishing economy. Where they see traffic jams, I see junctions, trains, and bridges. Where they see a crumbling state nearing collapse, I see Israel as a rising global power,” he was cited as saying by the Times of Israel.

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/390047-israel-economy-threat-research/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

The cryptocurrency called Kin is expected to make its debut this year. Its implementation will be relatively unusual because most apps use local currencies for payment.

Users will be able to use Kin to buy games, live video streams, and other digital products.

“Kik will be the largest install base of cryptocurrency users in the world,” CEO Ted Livingston told Bloomberg. “Kin, on day one will be the most-used cryptocurrency in the world,” he added.

Using messaging apps like WeChat and Kik for listening to music, ordering food or making payments is very popular in Asia.

Kik is a free chat and messaging application and was founded in 2009. Unlike Facebook’s Messenger or WhatsApp, it does not require a phone number. The service has 300 million registered users and 15 million monthly users.

Kik has already raised about $120 million from investors, including China’s Tencent Holdings.

China’s largest social network launches alternative to Apple App Store

Experts like venture capitalist Fred Wilson, who invested in Kik, say consumers will eventually revolt against the data collection from platforms like Facebook and Google, opting to pay small amounts of cryptocurrencies for a more private internet experience.

“Historically, you build a community and use it to then sell their attention to advertisers, or use it to sell them stuff, that they either don’t want or don’t need,” Livingston said as cited by CNBC. “So now with the cryptocurrency, it unlocks a fundamentally new way to monetize a community.”

According to Kik’s chief executive, the company wants to attract new merchants to sell on the platform, creating a snowball effect where Kin becomes more valuable and popular.

“We will create an economy where millions and millions of mainstream consumers are earning in a cryptocurrency for the first time,’’ Livingston said. “They’re going to want to spend in that same cryptocurrency as well.’’

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/389843-chat-app-digital-currency/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Trump adviser confirms US President said Germany ‘very bad’ on trade

The two-day summit began at a time when Trump reportedly called Germany “very bad” on trade and threatened to ban the sale of German cars in the United States.

Besides climate and defense, everyone expects very tough talks on trade.

The US trade deficit in goods and services topped $500 billion in 2016, while America’s largest trading partners – including China and Germany – were in surplus. This is something that angers the Trump administration.

“We will have a very robust discussion on trade, and we will be talking about what free and open means,” White House economic adviser Gary Cohn said on Thursday.

“What the president means by free and open is, we will treat you the way you treat us, meaning if you don’t have barriers to trade or you don’t have tariffs, we won’t have tariffs,” he said.

IMF accusations of US protectionism “rubbish” – Trump’s top trade official

Cohn admitted Europeans had made more progress in curbing emissions, and if the US catches up too quickly, it will hurt the American economy.

“Look, we believe in the environment, too. We believe in clean air. We believe in clean water,” he said. “But we also believe in economic growth. We believe in bringing manufacturing back to the United States, so we have to balance that…. If those things collide, growing our economy is going to win,” he said.

However, he conceded that the ways of producing energy are changing.

“Coal doesn’t even make that much sense anymore as a feedstock. Natural gas, which we have become an abundant producer, which we’re going to become a major exporter of, is such a cleaner fuel,” he said.

This year’s G7 summit is a largely different group compared to 2016. Four of the seven participating countries — the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Italy — are under new leadership.

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/389837-trump-trade-g7-economy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Volkswagen to challenge Tesla with line of affordable electric cars

The latest news confirming this came from Germany. At the start of this week, Daimler broke ground on a $559 million (€500-million) battery factory in Kamenz, Germany, claiming it will be one of the largest and most modern battery factories in Europe.

The carmaking giant has made clear its intentions for superfast growth in the EV segment. In March this year, at the annual shareholders’ meeting, Daimler announced plans to speed up its EV expansion and have a lineup of 10 all-electric models by 2022.

The acceleration of the program probably had something to do with the fact that the carmaker could not hit its own emission reduction targets for 2016, in spite of fitting its fleet with more energy-efficient engines. Yet more than that, it’s a clear acknowledgement of the revolution that Glasenberg was talking about.

Now, the EV business will require investments of $11 billion. Another $1 billion is slated to be used for batteries—the new gigafactory and the existing battery-making division, ACCUmotive. But the aim is not to just have enough batteries to fit on all new electric cars, the aim is to make them affordable.

Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde reported earlier this week that Daimler’s gigafactory is the first step in a direction that Europe has been slow to explore. The continent only accounts for 2.5 percent of the battery-making market, and this has to change in order for Europeans to be able to take advantage of not just e-cars, but new energy storage systems.

Energy storage systems are big in Europe, as they are elsewhere, with gigafactories reducing battery costs and ultimately the prices of the entire system, allowing utilities to store energy produced from renewable sources, making them much more commercially viable.

Read more on Oilprice.com: What Is Behind The Surge Of Russian Oil Exports To India?

The implications of these cost reductions are essential for cars as well: if the cost of a battery for an electric car falls by 40 percent, which gigafactories could achieve by 2021, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, then e-cars will become much more affordable since the battery cost represents a large chunk of the price tag. In fact, electric cars could become more affordable than the ones powered by internal combustion engines.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/389815-europe-gigafactory-race-ev/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

UPS says it is going to appeal the decision.

France slaps Facebook with maximum fine over privacy violations

“The court’s monetary award is excessive and far out of the bounds of constitutional limits, particularly given that the shipments at issue generated around $1 million in revenue,” the company said in an emailed statement sent to Reuters.

The value of the fine was chosen because the court was convinced “modest penalties” would not make a “sufficient corporate impact” on the delivery giant, according to Manhattan District Judge Katherine Forrest, who delivered the ruling.

The court analyzed information it had previously received from the parties and said UPS’ submissions had spotted a “lack of cooperation” and “odd abrasiveness.”

According to the ruling, the court was “troubled” by the company’s “consistent unwillingness to acknowledge its errors.”

Earlier this year, UPS was charged with the illegal shipping of hundreds of thousands of cartons of untaxed cigarettes to New York. Reportedly this deprived the state and the city of millions of dollars in taxes.

READ MORE: Smoked! Philip Morris’ plain packaging complaint rejected by Australian court

Since 2010, the company has been accused of shipping over 683,000 cartons of cigarettes to unlicensed wholesalers, retailers, and residences.

Taking into consideration the courier’s “high degree of culpability,” the “significant penalties” were appropriate, according to Judge Forrest.

New York State has reportedly been awarded $165.8 million while New York City, $81.2 million. Initially, the plaintiffs had sought more than $872 million.

“We are pleased that the award of nearly $247 million to the city and state reflects the serious nature of the offenses at issue. Cigarette smoking is a leading cause of preventable death, and the city and the state will continue in their efforts to protect the public health,” said New York City Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter, as cited by Reuters.

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/389812-us-ups-illegal-cigarette-shipments/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS