We’re gearing up for the holiday season with falling real wages and lower purchasing power; Taxes fell sharply last year across the EU; Twitter’s transformation has begun, but it’s still unclear what the direction will be. This is hvg.hu’s weekly economic summary.

This has not happened in a decade, and Hungary is approaching the Christmas season Real wages fall and purchasing power also declines. Retail trade is already declining, with customers becoming more price sensitive. It’s practically impossible to say how much it will cost to prepare Christmas dinner, so it’s difficult to calculate how much money is left over for gifts. However, since the price is sure to rise, it is only logical that those who can afford it will buy as soon as possible.

But there is also good news: the supply of goods is better than last year, the stocks are bigger and the market competition is increasing, so during the sales season, retailers are expected to come up with big price reductions. On the other hand, due to rising prices and reduced purchasing power, customers are more concerned about what they buy and how much they pay.

At first glance, Eurostat published slightly different data: In Hungary, taxes are the lowest in the entire EU in 2021. This emerges when comparing this to GDP, so the state’s tax and contribution revenues have fallen from 36.1 per cent to 34 per cent of GDP, despite the fact that the underlying GDP for comparison has increased a lot.

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In other words, the tax reduction was achieved in such a way that the tax revenue increased from HUF 17,500 billion to HUF 18,700 billion. Meanwhile, the government is not saving itself, much more local governments and social security – we can see the results of this, especially since the tax burden is already increasing in 2022.

There’s been a lot of buzz at Twitter since Elon Musk bought Twitter last week: first firing top executives, then disbanding the team, first denying it was preparing for a major cutback, then publicly And yet this happenedAnd the previously free Blue Tick, which proves the authenticity of the profile, was originally priced at $20, and after many people said it wasn’t good enough, he wants to charge $8.

The more important question everyone is anxiously waiting to be answered: If Musk wants to reduce moderation and make Twitter a platform for free conversation, Can you stop conspiracy theories and the far right from taking over? At the same time, you must at least comply with the rules of the United States and the European Union, especially now in Europe, where they want more online data and user protection. According to analysts, Musk has found himself in the middle of a more complicated, partly political, problem than he can handle. Or to put it more carefully, you start to see why every major social media site has a moderation group.

Image of the week: A tree-planting system developed in Stockholm offers a better chance of protecting trees in urban environments than ever before, They are already testing it in Budapest.

Renovation of Blaha Lujza tér using the Stockholm method

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Due to the energy crisis, the importance of alternative energy sources is increasing and thus the role of waste utilization. The capital waste recycling plant is the only waste-fired power plant in Magyarors, but it is one of the thirty largest power plants in Europe. 60 percent of Budapest’s garbage is incinerated, from which district heating is provided for the Northern Pest, as well as the natural gas-fired Újpest power plant. The power plant will convert 30 million cubic meters of natural gas per year. We visited it with the plant manager, Robert Fanzalski.

and Deport Orban, Technical Deputy General Manager, FedA We asked about the future of district heating. He spoke: Implementation of fourth-generation district heating systems is on the agenda in countries such as Denmark and Finland, a more advanced district heating culture. In Hungary, in addition to energy saving developments, many people have started to save, and many market customers, in addition to the state administration, are reducing their heat consumption. The most important development is the preparation of a large-scale geothermal district heating project that could help the Southeast pest within two years.

Because of the Spanish gas pipeline The leading powers of Europe were tense with each other. The German Chancellor and the Spanish Prime Minister recently discussed the construction of a new natural gas pipeline in A Coruña, a port city facing the US coast. Spain has plenty of liquefied natural gas (LNG) coming in, and many in the rest of Europe want to buy it.

A pipeline has already been built to the French border, but the French government is not very enthusiastic. As they also have four LNG terminals, apart from these, most of the country’s energy needs can be met from nuclear power plants. Now, quite suddenly, everyone realized that another wire would be fine. France does not want to become a transit country, and the Germans are threatening to cross France by sea, which is not a very realistic scenario, but it clearly shows that the situation has deteriorated.

Since the government took over the operation of the HÉV lines in 2016, there have been continuous promises to modernize the vehicle fleet. The current HÉV lines and the vehicles that run on them will be with us for at least another ten years. But we can look even further back, the Gödöllő HÉV and Metro 2 connection has been continuously planned since 2006, and Metro 5 since 2010, in which time not a single shovel has been cut.




Demand for new vehicles will be high, the design of the MIXA trains running on the Seppal line will be exactly sixty years old this year. But the MÁV is not in the best position with the somewhat modern GDR MXA trains. János Lázár said they will definitely not start rebuilding the HÉV lines for 8-10 years because the government doesn’t have the money for it at the moment. Therefore, if MÁV does not continue to lobby for new trains and complete renewal of the routes, the vehicles may decommission themselves after a while, and HÉV may soon have to replace trains with buses.




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