An upside-down world will be revealed to our eyes wherever we turn in the area of prices. In the past year, the price of wheat in the international markets crashed by more than 40%, reaching the price that was at the beginning of 2021, only 6.2 dollars per bushel, and this against the background of the continued operation of a maritime corridor that allows the sale of wheat by Ukraine (in an agreement with Russia that may expire next week).
While food prices in the world are falling: why are they only increasing in Israel? | stronghold
The amount of wheat sown in the USA is at an eight-year high, wheat production in Russia is also at a peak and wheat prices are on the decline. An upside-down world, an oxymoron, the government price committee recommends this week to raise the price of bread by 5%, go find out what formulas they work according to. The solution Raising the prices of the controlled bread should be simple, to completely remove the control over the price of bread as befits the high-tech Israeli state of 2023. As soon as there is no control over the price of bread, the markets will do their job and the price of bread will drop.
In the last year, the price of milk in the US has fallen continuously and the drop already amounts to a third, here too there is an oxymoron, in Israel the mechanism of milk price increases and its derivatives continues, due to the system of supervision and quotas through the archaic milk council from the middle of the last century. The best thing the current government could do is dismantle the The Dairy Council.
In the European Union, the price of milk increased by only 5.6% in the last year. Please note, while during the Corona the prices paid to dairy farmers in Europe increased, both in 2021 and in 2022, the prices paid to dairy farmers this year for milk are decreasing, in the first third of the year a 16% decrease was recorded. The price that dairy farmers in Europe receive for milk has retreated to what it was in May-June last year.
A celebration for ultra-Orthodox and importers
The cost of living is the main issue today. The public groans under the price increases, not only of regulated products, but also the prices of imported products. In the budget law that was placed on the Knesset table, the government budgets billions of shekels for the ultra-Orthodox factions, subsistence allowances for youths, yeshiva, food cards, and more and more money to maintain the integrity of the coalition by strengthening a sector, part of which is not productive.
These are transfers to the ultra-orthodox sector that have never been the same before, and this is perhaps so that the avrach can cope with the cost of living, when their income is mainly from the state treasury. The government is increasing its non-productive expenses by increasing allowances for the ultra-Orthodox, precisely at a time when its tax revenues are declining: in the first quarter of the year, the government’s tax revenues decreased by 7%, a decrease of NIS 6.7 billion compared to the corresponding period last year.
On the other hand, the government removed from the Arrangements Law the restrictions it had previously sought to impose on exclusive importers, which it announced it would impose on the major importers. The big importers and monopolies, each in their own field, will be able to continue to celebrate through price increases of tens of percent which they announced this week, really without justification.
There is no increase in costs in the world that would justify these increases, the importers continue to throw sand in the eyes of the public using ridiculous excuses, in order to justify crazy price increases. Oxymoron: as the prices of marine transport drop at a sharper rate, are already at the level that was before the corona virus, the prices of the import products of the major importers that hold franchises on specific brands are rising.
Haredim (Photo: Yonatan Zindel, Flash 90)
According to the Treasury’s original proposal, which was shelved and torn by the government from the Arrangements Law, there were supposed to be restrictions on the exclusive distributors and importers. It is not at all clear who in the government pushed for the cancellation of the restrictions on the large importers. odd.
The price of coal continues to collapse. It has already dropped by 55% in the last year, 12% of that in the last month alone. Coal makes up about 23% of the electricity generation inputs, this should lead to an immediate reduction in electricity rates that affect the entire economy from industrial production, trains, businesses, residences, hotels and more. The entire economy depends on the electricity tariffs, including the Ministry of Defense with a huge budget for the use of electricity.
-The Statutory Electricity Authority was good in approving, rightfully so, the increase in electricity rates in 2022, in several strokes, about 20%. But now, when it comes to the required drop in electricity rates, right today, the Electricity Authority is in hibernation, with a horribly ridiculous claim that it does not want fluctuations in electricity rates.
-Maybe the price of coal will rise? she asks. A government authority behaves like the last of the sly traders in the market, who only knows how to raise prices and does not reduce prices when required due to a decrease in costs. So for your information and for the information of the industrialists: electricity rates in the UK have decreased in the last year by 44%, in Germany by 56%, in France by 34%, in Spain by 45% and in Italy by 56%. The Electricity Authority needs to be told what is happening in Europe, maybe that way it will wake up from its slumber.
We would expect that the government will discuss at its last weekly meeting the issue of electricity tariffs in Israel against the background of the crash of tariffs in Europe. Electricity rates oppress the economy. An oxymoron, the government does discuss the issue of electricity, but in kosher electricity, as the ultra-Orthodox demand, storing electricity during the weekdays in batteries, huge accumulators that will be used on Shabbats and holidays for the ultra-Orthodox community, thus the ultra-Orthodox will not consume live electricity from power plants active on Shabbat operated by Jews. Strictly kosher electricity. Who will pay for the pilot imposed on the electric company? you.
Work harder
Of course, the Israeli government claims that the decision to store electricity in batteries is part of a national plan to store energy in the urban space, especially in dense areas “for the benefit of the entire public in Israel.” Energy Minister Israel Katz says that the electricity tariff as a result of the implementation of the kosher electricity policy will not become more expensive. Private power plants.
One of the questions is how the government, the local manufacturers, retailers, exclusive importers and service providers all together, manage to impose price increases on us month after month without a break? With such strong price increases, there is a fear that the public will not be able to absorb the price increases. The main reason is that the unemployment rate is really low, friction. In March of this year, it was only 3.3%. The increase in expenses, including the increasingly burdensome mortgage payments, forces more and more employees who will not benefit from huge coalition funds that the government will shower on the ultra-Orthodox, to look for work and enter the labor market, especially women.
Electric poles (photo: Yossi Zamir, Flash 90)
The unemployment rate among women fell in March to 3.1%, mainly among young women. Among the 18-24 year olds there was a decrease within a month to 4.9%, compared to 6.1% in February. Among men there was a drop to 3.5% after 4.1%, there is a drop in the unemployment rate, especially among men aged 30 and over. The cost of living forces more and more people to enter the labor market: the labor force participation rate rose to 64.1% after 63.9%. The employment rate has reached a new high, 61.7% of those aged 15 and over are employed, more since the beginning of 2020 before the Corona period.
It’s strange, how there are enough jobs, even though the organizers of the demonstrations across the country are trying to drive high-tech companies out of here and shame the smell of Israel significantly. In the last year there was a 1.9% increase in the number of jobs compared to March last year to 4.242 million and a 0.7% increase compared to February this year. Despite the inflation in the last year, the real wage among all workers in the economy for the month of February only decreased by 1.4%.
The number of jobs in high-tech increased in the last year by 3.8%, to 391,800 and even compared to January there was an increase of 0.2%. The average salary in high-tech was 30,241 shekels in February compared to the average salary in the economy which is 12,454 shekels, a nominal increase of 3.9% in the economy as a whole and 1.6% in high-tech. It turns out that demonstrations are separate and businesses are separate.
More exits are published every week: this week it was announced that the giant American chip company Qualcomm is purchasing an Israeli company Autotox from Kfar Neter that manufactures communication chips for an amount of 350-400 million dollars, Calcalist reports. There have been more exits since the beginning of the year. Not in the volumes that were in previous years, but still adequate revenues against the background of the global crisis in the high-tech industry. Israeli high-tech raised $1.7 billion in the first quarter of this year, compared to $5.8 billion in the first quarter of 2022, the last quarter before the fall of global high-tech, according to research institutes Startup Nation and IVC.
The coming year will be more difficult for most of the public. The exhaustion of the additional burden of the interest rate, which will continue to rise and its effects on the economy as well as on households, has not yet been manifested. Many families, especially young ones with small children and with heavy mortgages, will not be able to withstand the financial burden, sometimes even if both spouses work.
But according to the emerging state budget, not everyone groans under the burden and is forced to pay more and more for mortgages, for groceries, dormitories, nannies, school fees, electricity and property taxes. An oxymoron, those closest to the budget plate from among the coalition members will benefit from the generosity of the state budget, which will reduce the pressure on them to enter the labor market, at the expense of the families who do not receive all this good and will be forced to look for more ways to increase their income through more jobs, more part-time jobs. upside-down world.
