The most important news this week was the unprecedented attack on Israel from the territory of Iran, which fired 320 drones and rockets at the territory of Israel, in revenge for the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria. So far, Israel has only given a very moderate but precise response, eliminating an air defense system near an Iranian nuclear power plant. There are two readings of this: according to the optimistic opinion, Iran was shown that until it could cause significant damage with 320 missiles and drones, if it jumps a lot, Israel will destroy the Iranian nuclear power plants to the ground at any time, but this was only a warning that Iran knows who and where is in the system. According to the pessimistic view, this was not the answer, but a test of Iran’s air defenses before the real attack.
If the situation continues to escalate, it will have a serious impact on the world economy, as 17 million barrels of oil pass through the Iranian Strait of Hormuz per day. If only this and Iranian production were to drop, the price of oil would increase by as much as 40-50%, even though it is not already low. Fortunately, we are not there yet, but it is therefore important whether the two countries continue to attack each other.
Due to the worsening US inflation data, it is unlikely that the FED will cut interest rates on May 1st, and more and more people are even thinking that it is possible that there will be no interest rate cut for the whole year. High interest rates are good for bondholders, but bad for equity investors, for this reason and also because of the problems in the Middle East, the S&P 500 US stock index fell by 5.23% in the last month, but still gained 4.63% has been around since the beginning of the year and has grown by more than 20% over the past year.
Interest rates on home loans also started to rise again in the United States, this year for the first time the 30-year fixed home loan rate rose above 7%. Despite high interest rates, real estate prices increased by 5% in the past year, although the number of transactions decreased by 3.7%. The average American household earns $30,000 less than it would take to buy an average American home. Due to high interest rates, builders are also developing fewer properties, which is a problem because there are 3-6 million fewer residential properties in the United States than needed, which in turn keeps prices high.
The current American age group in their 30s wants to retire at the average age of 59, and for this they think they would need $1.65 million in retirement savings. The average retirement savings for this age group is less than $63,000.
The number of self-service checkouts in the United States continues to decline due to shoplifting. There are places where they are discontinued and there are places where you can only use these cash registers with a maximum of ten products.
Politicians are no longer the only ones worried about the rapidly growing national debt of the United States. Every hundred days, the US national debt increases by another thousand billion dollars (!!!). Last year, government securities had to be sold for 22 trillion dollars (including new and maturing debts), but it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a buyer for them. Article for this.
Tesla sold nearly 10% fewer cars in the first quarter than a year ago, something that hasn’t happened to it in recent years. It is a joy in joy that the big competitor, the Chinese BYD, also closed a bad quarter with its electric cars, so this quarter Tesla was once again the biggest electric car manufacturer. (BYD also produces hybrid cars.) Perhaps not independently of the news, Tesla announced 10% layoffs. (THE A brief history of BYD.) Further news is that Tesla has reportedly stopped producing the cheap car, which was originally planned for 2025, but is no longer considered profitable due to Chinese competition.
Since the first of January, the American state has already paid out 580 million dollars to support electric cars. You can claim up to $4,000 for a used car and up to $7,500 for a new car.
It is becoming more and more common among car brands to move important functions such as windshield wipers, index, emergency flasher, emergency call lever or a separate physical button to the screen, even in the event of an emergency. Looking at and poking at the screen while driving is also dangerous under normal circumstances, but if you have to act suddenly (immediately wipe off a muddled windshield, for example, if the automatic wipe does not work), then it is exponentially more life-threatening if there is no dedicated button or lever for this. Therefore, Euro NCAP, which deals with car safety and crash testing, has announced that from 2026, cars where important functions cannot be accessed using a lever or button will no longer receive a five-star rating.
They also conducted a pilot program in Seattle among the poorest, providing them with an income of $500 (plus). The results were encouraging, employment among them doubled and so on. Details in this in article.
One of the biggest problems of the Hungarian tax system is that the taxation of the third of the three taxation legs (income, turnover and wealth) is practically non-existent or barely exists. (TBSZ account tax-exempt, profit from the sale of real estate tax-exempt, no serious real estate tax, etc.) Therefore, the other two legs must be overtaxed (the world’s leading VAT rate of 27%, taxes on high wages). Well, that’s not the case in Canada, now they want to raise the income on annual capital over $250,000 to 66% instead of the previous 50% tax rate. This is what should be paid for all capital income (gains on stocks, real estate sales, etc.) who earn more than a quarter of a million dollars a year from their capital income.
The Canadian government wants to fix its budget by taxing the rich anyway. Article.
It is bad news for chocolate addicts that due to the floods in Nigeria, the price of cocoa beans has increased even more, so this product has become more expensive by 154% this year alone.
The Hungarian government always deliberately underestimates the costs of hospitals, and provides funding for each task to be performed, which is known to be far from covering the real costs. As a result, the hospitals are constantly accumulating debts, which the government reimburses on an ad-hoc basis to the suppliers, who until then are forced to finance the operation of the hospitals. (And if they have enough, then there are surgeries that are missed due to shutdowns and lack of equipment. Even when the reason is not a lack of doctors or other reasons.)
This year, the government will already spend 104 billion forints on the subsequent compensation of underfinancing in two installments, the problem is that the debt already stands at 110 billion forints at the end of the third (!!!) month and if the current pace is maintained, it will increase by 20 billion forints per month the debt. The solution would be true cost-based financing of hospitals, but as long as the budget deficit is over 6% per year on average, it is already the fifth year in a row (not the budget, but over 6% of the total GDP, last year it was the quite amazing 6.7%) managed to get it together), until then it will remain just a dream. As a substitute measure, the government is now sending inspectors to the hospitals to check whether all registered doctors and patients are actually in the hospital.
Fuel here is 3.2-5% more expensive than the average of neighboring countries, so the government is again threatening the possibility of a price cap, to see if it will make fuel cheaper. However, reducing the 27% VAT and reducing the excise (and other) taxes on fuel to an average level would eliminate the difference. (If we remember, in January the rate of excise duty increased by HUF 41.)
The Brendon baby store also fell into the hands of the country’s small ball, from now on this company also belongs to the Butcher empire.
The country’s gas consumption fell by another 4.3% in the heating season, even after last year’s drop of 20%. One of the reasons for this could be the mild winter and the fact that we used a little more electricity than last year.
The forint is still weak, 395 forints must be paid for one euro, but in the current turbulent times this can even be considered a good result.
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