Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Russia can avoid crisis for three to five years, the Center for Analysis and Strategies in Europe said.</li><li>Domestic demand has kept the country strong, becoming a key driver of growth, the think tank said.</li></ul>Russia's wartime economy could be in it for the long-haul — or at least longer than expected.A team of economists is unconvinced that Russia will tumble into economic collapse any time soon, as suggested by some analysts.Instead, Russia's economic capability "excludes almost any chance of a serious crisis cause by internal factors in at least three-to-five years perspective," three authors wrote in a <a target="_blank" href="https://case-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/case-241112-en_fin2_compressed.pdf">report</a> for the Center for Analysis and Strategies in Europe.The paper counters notions that a Russian crisis will come as soon as next year, an argument made by economists such as Yuriy Gorodnichenko. The UC Berkley analyst told Business Insider that Moscow's slowing energy trade and dollar shortage would <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-collapse-recession-moscow-ukraine-war-us-dollar-energy-2024-7">cause the crisis</a>.Even observers within the country expect<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economic-experts-forecast-bumpy-2025-for-country-inflation-putin-2024-11"> struggle in 2025</a>, including <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-outlook-stagflation-recession-inflation-gdp-growth-ukraine-war-2024-11">the specter of staglfation</a>.But though Moscow is guaranteed to face challenges at some point, the CASE authors cautioned not to translate hardships into proof of a near-term crisis.Instead, these three trends will keep Russia resilient, they said:<h3 id="e2e33bea-404e-4393-9ba3-00371b80bb8d">1. Don't underestimate domestic demand</h3>According to the report, Russia's domestic market has been an underrated factor behind the country's perseverance.After Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, local consumption has kept the economy afloat, with domestic demand overtaking exports as a leading growth driver."In the construction sector alone in 2023, up to 30 million tons of steel were consumed (the increase from the previous year amounted to 9 percent), while before the war, in 2021, just over 15 million tons were exported," CASE said.Moscow's war efforts boosted the purchasing power of millions, as the need for soldiers lifted wages across the country. With more manpower needed at the front-lined, a rising <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-growth-recession-labor-worker-shortage-inflation-sanctions-west-2024-9">labor shortage</a> at home furthered the wage trend.Lower-income Russians benefited the most, as recruited soldiers have largely stemmed from economically-depressed regions. In turn, these households spent heavily on domestically-products essentials.Meanwhile, wealthier households have benefited from Russia's high interest rates, which have boosted investment incomes, the report said."As a result, in 2022–2024, federal budget revenues from domestic sources were growing faster than oil and gas proceeds, whose share has declined from 40–45 percent of overall revenues in 2014–2019 to 30–35 percent in 2023–2024," it said.Demand is also not going away if the war does end soon, the CASE analysts said. On one hand, it shouldn't be assumed that defense spending will ease once peace returns, given that the Kremlin has indicated plans to keep defense industry production running at elevated levels.Secondly, returning soldiers will require care, and the subsidy programs that crop up should keep aggregate demand afloat.<h3 id="7977f137-74bc-4736-a4f9-c8bbde4a0eaa">2. Sustainable war spending</h3>Some have forecast an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-ukraine-war-moscow-military-spending-currency-inflation-budget-2024-9">immediate recession</a> if Russia's war in Ukraine ever ends, arguing that the Kremlin's massive war budget is responsible for the economy's continued survival.But Moscow's swelling war expenditures aren't unsustainable, CASE said.Though defense and national security spending will now account for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-outlook-defense-budget-spending-ukraine-war-putin-sanctions-2024-10">40% of all federal expenditures</a>, the report noted that the Kremlin has financing options.For instance, Moscow has a "huge space" in domestic borrowing, given that Russia's government's 18.1% debt-to-GDP isn't significant by modern standards.At the same time, the government has steadily increased tax burdens on both individuals and corporations. Next year, a long-standing flat income tax rate is set to be replaced by a progressive tax scale.Nominal business tax rates face an annual increase, equal to about 1 percentage point of GDP between 2023 and 2025.<h3 id="51c2f739-8912-4254-ba4d-5b049839921d">3. Inflation and labor concerns are non-issues</h3>CASE acknowledged that more spending and higher wages have created an fueled inflation, but said it shouldn't pose a severe threat.As price growth <a target="_blank" href="https://tass.com/economy/1871947">reached 8.54% in October,</a> that's good news for Moscow, as single-digit inflation won't trigger a slowdown. Instead, it will most likely be treated as a "new normal."Russia can also expect labor relief over time. Though the country was estimated to be missing as many as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-lacks-workers-ukraine-war-labor-crisis-worker-shortage-2023-12">five million workers in 2023</a>, cutting down on excess employment among corporations could free up 2 million workers, CASE estimated.The report also cited discussions to cut down on easy access to higher education, and potentially make technical colleges a requirement. Changes to migration policy that would bring in more labor are also being pursued.

3 reasons why Russia's economy can survive without crisis for up to 5 more years, think-tank economists say

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Trump's win is prompting some Americans to consider getting other residencies.</li><li>Concerns include antisemitism, LGBTQ+ rights, and future stability for children.</li></ul>As Donald Trump readies his return to the White House, other Americans are plotting their exit strategies from the country.Given his party's and allies' stances on abortion, immigration, the environment, LGBTQ+ rights, and other issues, a number of Americans feel their safety and stability are at stake and want the option to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moving-to-canada-from-us-pros-cons-heathcare-home-prices">move abroad.</a>This week, Google searches in the US for dual citizenship <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&amp;geo=US&amp;q=dual%20citizenship&amp;hl=en">hit</a> a five-year high.Business Insider spoke to three residency and citizenship consultancies about what they heard in the 48 hours after the election was called. They've been busy, receiving dozens more inquiries than on a typical day.<h2 id="835ab473-6d99-4a4f-b71d-93d128245cc6">Arton Capital</h2>Armand Arton, the CEO of Arton Capital, a Montreal-based global citizenship and residency firm, said he has seen the most demand in the last three election cycles out of his firm's 20 years of work.On Wednesday, the firm received between 110 to 120 inquiries, while their daily number is usually 10 to 20, according to Arton.While not all inquiries will become clients, he said there is an unusual sense of urgency among those who are seriously considering <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/italy-new-digital-nomad-visa-open-remote-workers-2024-4">alternative residences.</a>"Americans normally will take an average of three weeks to four weeks to review the documents before signing anything," Arton said. "They're signing it the same day."Most of the firm's inquiries are coming from Democratic strongholds like New York, upstate Connecticut, and California."All the red states will think that they run the world for the next five years. So they're not going anywhere," Arton said.<h2 id="5697bddb-6fc2-450d-878a-afdd68213c58">Henley &amp; Partners</h2>Judi Galst, a managing director at Henley &amp; Partners in New York, said that the firm had been receiving nonstop inquiries about acquiring a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-foreign-countries-for-retirement-on-a-budget-affordability-healthcare-2024-9">backup residency</a> since the election was called. She was on the phone all of Wednesday."Literally back to back, like, not even time to go to the bathroom," Galst said.The London-based company, which opened its US office two years ago, first saw a big uptick in demand for its services from American citizens in 2020, when the pandemic restricted mobility.Demand has remained high since then. While worries about the pandemic have faded, they were replaced by fears about who might be elected, Galst said.Most of the company's clients don't want to leave the US right away. But worries about the direction the country is headed make them want an option to move.US inquiries for 2024 have already exceeded 2023's total by 7%, according to data collected by the company. US Nationals currently make up the largest portion of the firm's applications.While demand has risen steadily, Galst said clients' tone this week took on particular urgency — they're no longer just shopping around for <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wealthy-americans-foreign-residence-citizenship-investment-migration-henley-partners-2024-3">potential options.</a> Some people seem to regret not starting the process sooner, since the compliance process takes time."In the last 24 hours, I've heard real urgency," Galst said. "Before, sometimes people would be like maybe I'm crazy; I can't believe I'm even thinking about this. But for some people, their greatest fear has been realized."Galst said that worries of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/1600-harvard-alumni-may-pause-donations-anti-semitism-row-2023-11">antisemitism</a> have come up in about one-third of her recent calls. There has been a wave of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/1600-harvard-alumni-may-pause-donations-anti-semitism-row-2023-11">antisemitic sentiment </a>in the country in the wake of Israel's military action against Gaza following the Palestinian militant group Hamas' October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks."I think especially for people who lost family in the Holocaust, it's in their DNA," she said. "They don't want to see history repeat itself, they want to be prepared."Other inquiries came from same-sex couples, a family with transgender children, and Democratic donors worried about retribution.Galst said the company has seen a surge in interest in <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/golden-visas-passports-countries-wealthy-residence-investment-2024-9">migration through investment,</a> which unlocks destinations like Portugal and the Caribbean for high-net-worth individuals. It has also seen an influx of people looking to gain <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/golden-visas-greece-portugal-spain-boosted-economy-housing-crisis-2024-5">foreign citizenship</a> by descent, which is an option for those with family ties in Ireland, Germany, Austria, and Poland, among <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spain-scrapping-golden-visas-real-estate-investment-wealthy-foreigners-2024-4">other countries</a>.<h2 id="7e9d769e-3118-4c6b-9098-02af91cb2711">Pela Terra</h2>Pela Terra, a citizenship-by-investment service based in Portugal, has been tracking demand for dual citizenships since 2011. A spokesperson said that the company prepared for the increase in post-election inquiries.Unlike Henley &amp; Partners, which saw highly-concentrated interest from Democratic-leaning states, Pela Terra received a lot of inquiries from Florida, which voted Republican.Other inquirers' demographics included people from California and those from the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-same-sex-gay-marriage-poll-gallup-2024-6">LGBTQ+ community</a>.One recent call came from a retired lesbian couple living in a central American state, who worry about their own future in the US — and are far more concerned for their adult daughter and her children."They feel that their rights are likely to be increasingly curtailed in the next few years and potentially beyond that, and they want to provide the escape option for them of a second passport in liberal Europe," the spokesperson said.

We asked 3 migration firms about what they're hearing in the first 48 hours after the election

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Donald Trump proposed mass deportation to lower housing costs and boost job opportunities.</li><li>Democrats argue deportations harm businesses, separate families, and displace millions.</li></ul>The <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-deportation-immigration-policy-election-housing-home-prices-construction-costs-2024-10">mass deportation</a> of people living in the US illegally has been one of the cornerstones of the Republican presidential ticket leading up to the November election.In speeches, former president <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/housing-affordability-supply-impact-presidential-election-scenarios-homebuyers-harris-trump-2024-10">Donald Trump</a> has suggested that deportations could lower housing prices and give legal residents, especially Black and Hispanic Americans, more job opportunities. His supporters say allowing migrants to enter the country and live and work illegally places a long-term burden on the economy."We're going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country," Trump <a target="_blank" href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-vows-mass-deportation-migrants-springfield-dismisses-threats/story?id=113661663">said in September</a> while taking reporter questions in Los Angeles. "And we're going to start with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/springfield-ohio-town-center-baseless-trump-pet-eating-claims-tensions-2024-9">Springfield</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.denverpost.com/2024/09/13/aurora-tren-de-aragua-donald-trump-venezuela-immigration/">Aurora</a>," he added, referring to the Ohio and Colorado cities where debates around immigration have been particularly tense.Many Democrats say <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-mass-deportation-immigraiton-plan-federal-reserve-inflation-2024-9">mass deportations</a> would hurt businesses and employment opportunities for all Americans, in addition to separating families and displacing millions of people. It's especially salient in the crucial southern border swing state of Arizona."We all remember what they did to tear families apart, and now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation — a mass deportation — in American history," Vice President Kamala Harris said at a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFCjE-73yUw">September conference</a>. "Imagine what that would look like and what that would be. How is that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps?"Current <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-latinos-shifting-right-trump-harris-gop-democrats-starr-county-2024-10">immigration</a> policy already supports deporting large numbers of unauthorized residents. The Biden administration has deported over <a target="_blank" href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-deportation-record">1.1 million</a> people from 2021 to February 2024, and Vice President Kamala Harris has supported <a target="_blank" href="https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2024/trump-vs-harris-immigration-future-policy-proposals">higher standards</a> for asylum eligibility.Deportations would likely continue under Harris' administration, but Trump's proposals would be an order of magnitude greater and perhaps the most consequential outcome of his second term.A September <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/issues-and-the-2024-election/">Pew Research Center poll</a> found that immigration is a key issue for more than half of Americans as they cast their ballots. To untangle the data and campaign rhetoric and understand the effects of mass deportation on the economy, Business Insider reviewed research and spoke with over a dozen experts, politicians, local advocacy organizations, and immigrants.<h2 id="460770c2-debc-4bb0-921f-c9c4040c1f7b">2 cities in Arizona show the crux of the economic debate</h2>Immigrants, both authorized and unauthorized, make up nearly 13% of Arizona's population, one of the highest in the country, the nonpartisan think tank <a target="_blank" href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/state-profiles/state/demographics/AZ">Migration Policy Institute</a> estimates. Pew Research Center estimates <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.kjzz.org/kjzz-news/2024-07-30/report-undocumented-migrants-make-up-3-5-of-arizonas-population">as many as 250,000</a> Arizona residents could be deported under Trump's plan.Some of those deportees could be from Yuma, Arizona, a city near the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harris-arizona-mexico-border-security-immigration-trump-election-2024-9">US-Mexico border</a>. Its mayor, Douglas Nicholls, told BI that upticks in illegal immigration have strained the city's resources and infrastructure.Nicholls, a Republican, plans to vote for Trump and wants the next president to focus on more funding and staffing for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. He said the US needs to prioritize immediate processing for those seeking asylum, improve technology along the border, and expedite removal processes."We're not equipped as a community to handle large amounts of people coming through without resources," Nicholls said. "We don't have a homeless shelter focused on migrants. Our homeless shelter is focused on pretty much residents, and it's pretty busy at that already."When it comes to mass deportations, he said the town's main industry, agriculture, wouldn't suffer too much because employers use legal paths to work authorization, like H-2A or green-card programs, to recruit labor. He said that migrants tend to pass through Yuma before moving on.Tucson's mayor, Regina Romero, said the story is different in Arizona's second-most populous city. She told BI that a mass deportation would devastate the agriculture, construction, and hospitality industries.Romero, a Democrat who endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, said immigrants living in the country illegally "pay <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rich-life-insurance-estate-taxes-ilit-2024-9">taxes</a> and have billions of dollars worth of spending power."Instead of deportation, Romero said she wants the federal government to add more judges and staff to shorten asylum-application wait times and invest more in infrastructure at ports of entry."For many decades, Tucson has known how to help immigrant refugee and asylum-seeking populations connect to whomever they need to connect to," Romero said. "We know how to do it."<h2 id="797f992d-38a7-4c54-a0ef-9b344070016b">The national economic impact of mass deportations</h2>Removing the <a target="_blank" href="https://cmsny.org/us-undocumented-population-increased-in-july-2023-warren-090624/#:~:text=The%20total%20undocumented%20population%20increased,to%2010%20million%20in%202020.">estimated</a> 11.7 million unauthorized immigrants from the US would reshape the labor market, cost an enormous amount, strain government services, and affect economic growth and inflation for a decade or more.<h3 id="91aa708f-8270-476a-97e4-7e553eda3734">Employment and the labor market</h3>The Trump campaign and its allies have argued that deportations could open more employment opportunities for Americans.Immigrants are "going to be attacking — and they already are — Black population jobs, the Hispanic population jobs, and they're attacking union jobs, too," Trump said at an October rally in Reading, Pennsylvania.Immigrants account for a third of workers in jobs paying under $30,000 a year, the conservative think tank American Compass <a target="_blank" href="https://americancompass.org/a-guide-to-labor-supply/">said</a>. Duncan Braid, its coalition director, told BI that competition from those immigrants hurts lower-income Americans. He said while mass deportations may cost the government a lot of money, its role is to protect the Constitution and its citizens."We currently have a situation where there is sort of an unlimited number of lower-skilled people coming into this country, and them competing directly with other low-skilled Americans already here would necessarily, just based on very basic theory, suppress their wages," Braid said.Recent research suggests the opposite. A <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w32389">working paper by economists</a> at the University of California, Davis, found that increases in immigration can boost native employment."We really don't see much evidence of substitution between unauthorized immigrants and US-born people at all," <a target="_blank" href="https://www.brookings.edu/people/chloe-east/">Chloe East</a>, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said. "That's partly because the jobs that unauthorized immigrants are willing to take are lower-paying, are more dangerous, and are less desirable for other reasons."<h3 id="dd881018-1654-4a0f-89bc-4814c3eb733e">How much a mass deportation would cost the government</h3>The Trump campaign has talked little about how mass deportations could be implemented and on what scale. While in the White House, Trump carried out about <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-deportation-record">1.5 million</a> deportations and made similar promises about mass deportation but was met with various legal challenges. At a campaign rally on October 11 in Aurora, Colorado, Trump pledged to use a 1798 law to deport suspected members of cartels and gangs.To carry out what he called "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history," Trump plans to bolster ICE raids by reassigning federal agents and recruiting from local police forces and says he'll order the construction of new detention camps for people waiting for their cases to be processed, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/us/politics/trump-2025-immigration-agenda.html">The New York Times reported</a>.That would be an expensive undertaking. Using Census Bureau data, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/mass-deportation">American Immigration Council</a> estimated it would cost the federal government over $315 billion, including hiring up to 409,000 new government employees.In addition to labor market disruptions, economists also say the country would lose tax revenue. Unauthorized immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes — about $8,889 per person — in 2022, the <a target="_blank" href="https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/">Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy</a> said. In 2022, unauthorized immigrants paid about $704 million in state and local taxes in Arizona alone.Supporters of deportation argue that the loss of tax revenue would be offset by savings on reduced services for immigrants. A study from the conservative <a target="_blank" href="https://manhattan.institute/article/the-lifetime-fiscal-impact-of-immigrants">Manhattan Institute</a> estimated that while older and less-educated immigrants, on average, receive more in federal benefits than they pay in taxes, higher-educated young immigrants are taxed more than they get back over their lifetime.The Trump campaign has made a similar argument, saying that welfare programs, taxpayer-subsidized health insurance, transportation costs through FEMA, and education expenses for immigrants ultimately cost taxpayers billions of dollars."The real economic crisis is the $182 billion American tax dollars spent each year to cover the costs of 20 million illegal immigrants that have flooded our communities thanks to Kamala Harris' wide-open border policies," Taylor Rogers, an RNC spokesperson, said in a statement to Business Insider."President Trump's mass deportation of illegal immigrants will not only make our communities safer but will save Americans from footing the bill for years to come," Rogers added.<h3 id="636206ff-627e-4eb3-9f7e-3ba104a3e936">Economic growth and inflation</h3>Mass deportations could have consequences for economic growth as a whole. The Trump campaign hasn't addressed overall growth and inflation concerns but has said deportations would help reduce demand in the housing market.On a more macro scale, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2024/mass-deportations-would-harm-us-economy">Peterson Institute</a> for International Economics said gross domestic product could fall 1.2% below baseline by 2028 if 1.3 million people are deported, while inflation could climb 0.5 percentage points above current estimates by 2026. In a more extreme scenario where 8.4 million people are deported, GDP could fall by 7.4% and inflation could climb 3.5 percentage points above baseline by the end of the decade.The American Immigration Council has a similarly negative view of the economic impact. It estimated that the US could lose between 4.2% and 6.8% in GDP if about 11 million people are deported."It would be very easy for an average American to see the impact of this policy in their daily life," Marcus Noland, the executive vice president and director of studies at the Peterson Institute, said.

Arizona is the epicenter of the debate over how Trump's mass deportation plan would hit the economy

<ul class="summary-list"><li>According to Hurun's 2024 rich list, China lost 432 billionaires since the high of 1,185 in 2021.</li><li>It's a reflection of China's struggling economy and a government crackdown on the superrich.</li></ul>The number of China's billionaires has dropped by a third since 2021, according to an annual rich list.There were fewer dollar billionaires as difficulties for China's economy and government crackdowns took their toll, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.hurun.net/en-us/rank/hsrankdetails?pagetype=rich">the Hurun Research Institute said.</a>Hurun, a private research group that has tracked Chinese billionaires since 1999, said the total peaked in 2021 with 1,185 billionaires, a figure which fell to 753, a decline of 432, or 36% of the total.It comes as some of China's superrich choose to lie low or leave the country, finding covert ways to take their money with them.<h2 id="4b530a5d-4714-4288-bffd-c77cf18006cc">An old guard departs</h2>Older tycoons — often real estate — are giving way to a new cohort propelled by tech, energy, and e-commerce.Topping the Hurun list this year was <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-billionaire-zhang-yiming-net-worth-lifestyle-2019-11">Zhang Yiming</a>, the founder of TikTok owner Bytedance, with a fortune of $49.3 billion.ByteDance's global revenue grew 30% last year to $110 billion, with users in the US of its TikTok app closing in on 200 million. ByteDance operates a separate app, Douyin, for Chinese users.Yiming replaced <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asias-richest-man-zhong-shanshan-lifestyle-wealth-2021-1">Zhong Shanshan</a>, who fell to second place with a fortune of $47.9 billion. His worth declined 24%, the biggest drop of the year at $15.5 billion."The stories of the individuals on the Hurun China Rich List tell the story of the Chinese economy," said Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun's Chairman and Chief Researcher."The likes of Robin Zeng of lithium battery maker CATL wasn't even on the list 10 years ago, neither was Li Zhenguo of solar panel maker Longi.""Most new faces this year came from Taiwan, which has enjoyed a relatively strong stock market, underpinned by its semiconductor industry," he said.Hoogewerf told Business Insider that the list only included people who were "born and bred, or started out and live in Greater China" up to a minimum age of 18, regardless of their current citizenship. <h2 id="bf71b05f-7223-409f-80f8-b31d7d85d3d0">A reflection of China's economy</h2>China's economy has been grappling with a prolonged housing crisis, high unemployment, high local government debt, and weak consumer demand. Those headwinds hit its superrich, too.Earlier this month, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-economy-3q-gdp-growth-stock-market-stimulus-2024-10">China released third-quarter growth data</a> that was its slowest in six quarters. The government is promising stimulus measures to boost economic growth and has plans to approve more than $1.4 trillion in extra debt in the next few years, according to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/china/reaction-reuters-report-chinas-stimulus-plans-2024-10-29/">Reuters.</a>"With property prices falling and the economy generally tightening, it's not a big surprise the numbers of super-wealthy are falling in China," Kerry Brown, Professor of Chinese Politics at King's College London told BI."And people now don't want to draw attention to themselves while the government is laying stress on equity and greater balance."<h2 id="312e409a-c716-40ff-abfc-180d4446813d">An exodus of the superwealthy</h2>Chinese billionaires are also feeling <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-regulate-excessive-wealth-common-prosperity-2021-8">Xi Jinping's push for a "common prosperity</a>," which was widely viewed as a call for billionaires to share their wealth.That led, among other things, to regulatory crackdowns on tech platform companies and campaigns against China's rich entrepreneurs.Some of China's superrich have also experienced political backlash for making statements perceived as against Xi, including <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jack-ma-teacher-alibaba-tech-titan-high-tech-farmer-agriculture-2023-12">Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba and Ant Group and once the invincible poster boy of Chinese tech.</a>He <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jack-ma-not-missing-alibaba-china-2021-1">disappeared from public view</a> in 2020 after facing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-ant-group-ipo-jack-ma-alipay-2020-11">action from Chinese regulators</a> that resulted in an antitrust investigation, a suspended IPO, and the loss of $12 billion in personal fortune within a few months."Other superrich individuals may have taken such high-profile cases as good reason to preempt possible trouble by moving out of China," Brown wrote in an article for <a target="_blank" href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-becoming-harder-to-get-super-rich-in-china-239774">The Conversation</a>.While this may not be reflected in the Hurun rich list, China is on track to see a record exodus of 15,200 high-net-worth individuals in 2024, according to a report by investment migration firm <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.henleyglobal.com/newsroom/press-releases/henley-private-wealth-migration-report-2024">Henley &amp; Partners.</a>High-net-worth individuals were classed as those with liquid investable wealth of $1 million or more.<h2 id="1c4d9b70-83c2-414a-ac76-1fb8ea05653b">Getting money out of China</h2>Individuals can wire no more than $50,000 a year overseas, which can be problematic for wealthy citizens who want to leave.According to a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-08/how-china-s-rich-are-using-underground-networks-to-move-their-money-abroad?srnd=premium">Bloomberg</a> report last year, some ultra-rich Chinese citizens have been finding unusual, sometimes illegal, ways to move money in response.The report said that funds can move through an <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/china-economy-wealthy-investors-markets-rich-cash-banks-secret-transfer-2023-10">informal, underground banking system known as "hawala."</a> Those caught are typically fined 30% or more of the total amount that they had attempted to move."These agencies have sprouted to meet soaring demand," Joel Gallo, an adjunct professor of finance at New York University Shanghai, told Bloomberg. "They act as quasi-banking firms, yet operate without the scrutiny of one and adroitly engage in regulatory arbitrage by standing in a gray zone.Others are using virtual private networks to export their wealth in the form of crypto, which has been banned in China since 2021.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/bruised-by-stock-market-chinese-rush-into-banned-bitcoin-2024-01-25/">Reuters</a> reported that one finance executive used bank cards from small commercial banks to buy cryptocurrencies through gray-market dealers. He then capped each transaction at $6,978 to avoid alerting regulators.Brown, the expert at King's College London, said the loss of wealth in China shouldn't be overstated."It is still OK to be rich in China, if a bit less so than in the past. But it's probably more advisable to be low profile and very loyal in public to the Communist party — and to get rich working in high-tech sectors that the government favors."

China lost 36% of its billionaires to years of economic troubles and crackdowns

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Spain is looking to immigrants to help boost its economy.</li><li>Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has said migration is crucial for the country's prosperity.</li></ul>Spain is looking to immigrants to help boost its economy and fill gaps in its workforce.Speaking to parliament on Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqbRYeyo4cs">Pedro Sánchez</a> promoted migration as a means of fueling prosperity in the country, arguing that it offered an effective way of tackling what he called a "demographic challenge."Spain's economy and labor market face significant challenges from an aging population and low birth rate.Eurostat data put Spain's birth rate at 1.16 births per woman in 2022, the second-lowest in the EU, while the Spanish central bank has said that population aging is "one of the greatest structural challenges facing the Spanish economy."Sánchez said that migration may offer the answer to those problems, saying it had historically been one of "the great drivers of the development of nations.""Spain needs to choose between being an open and prosperous country or a closed, poor country," he added.Sánchez also used his speech to dispel certain myths and "disinformation" about immigrants, saying that "hatred and xenophobia have been — and are — the greatest destroyer of nations.""The reality, ladies and gentlemen, is that foreigners are neither better nor worse than us. They are equal. They are people with their virtues, their defects, their dreams, and their fears," he said.It comes as other EU members have sought to clamp down on immigration.Germany has tightened border controls to tackle irregular migration, while <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.government.se/government-policy/swedens-new-migration-policy/">Sweden</a> and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/17/doctors-criticise-finlands-proposal-to-withhold-healthcare-for-migrants">Finland</a> have both announced anti-immigration plans.In the US, the run-up to the presidential election has also seen immigration come under the spotlight.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-mass-deportation-immigraiton-plan-federal-reserve-inflation-2024-9">Former President Donald Trump</a> has drawn particular attention to the issue, often using inflammatory rhetoric to describe immigrants.Trump has also vowed to enact the "largest domestic deportation in American history" should he be elected in November.

Spain is betting on immigrants to boost its economy 

China used to be the crypto capital of the world. Thanks to the cheap energy and friendly regulations, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-how-to-mine-foundry-china-crypto-ban-kevin-zhang-2021-11">mining companies</a> flocked to set up shop in a country reluctantly playing host to the energy-intensive process of creating coins and validating transactions. In 2019, despite some regulation and a ban on initial coin offerings years prior, China's leader, Xi Jinping, called for widespread implementation of blockchain technology to support the country's quest for secure and reliable data systems, boosting blockchain research and further propelling China ahead of the US. At its peak, in 2021, the country accounted for almost 70% of global cryptocurrency mining.But in May of that year, China changed course. Concerns about the use of cryptocurrencies for illegal activity resulted in an effective <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-crypto-ban-bitcoin-golden-opportunity-us-blockchain-regulation-2021-10">ban on crypto mining and transactions</a>. Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me the ban stemmed from the risk that cryptocurrencies posed to China's financial system through activities like <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-crypto-fraud-scam-money-laundering-jian-wen-uk-2024-3">money laundering</a>. This sent the industry spiraling.Mining companies immediately fled the country, many moving to nearby Kazakhstan, where there was an abundance of coal power. Since minting bitcoins requires solving increasingly complex math problems, the hundreds of specialized machines used in the process — along with the equipment to cool them — take a massive amount of electricity. According to the <a target="_blank" href="https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci/mining_map">Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index</a>, Kazakhstan went from accounting for 7% of the global "hashrate" — the computational power required to make new bitcoins — in May 2021 to almost 20% just three months later. The influx of crypto miners began sucking up 7% of the country's generated energy, sending the price of fuel soaring and creating widespread power outages. After a massive public outcry at the end of 2021, mining companies in Kazakhstan were effectively cut off from the grid.So then they came to America. Today, the US makes up about 40% of the <a target="_blank" href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/bitcoin-mining-by-country">global hashrate</a> — up from 17% during China's 2021 peak — making America the biggest hub for bitcoin mining. The country's 52 cryptocurrency-mining operations use about 2% of America's energy — enough to power the entire state of Utah or West Virginia. While it hasn't caused the kind of crisis that took place in Kazakhstan, the massive energy consumption has still prompted pushback from locals and heightened <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-mine-texas-lawsuit-links-to-chinese-investors-2023-12">concerns about Chinese-owned operations moving in</a>. And it's just the latest example of China kicking out burdensome industries only for them to end up on America's doorstep.Among the major Chinese-owned crypto-mining companies that migrated to America was Bit Mining. In May 2021, the company had the largest data center and crypto-mining facility in the world, in China. By that September, after a brief stint in Kazakhstan, it was setting up shop in Akron, Ohio, in a building once owned by the tire giant Goodyear. Other bitcoin-mining companies settled in rural regions in the US with affordable electricity, favorable regulations, and ample warehouse space. But the noisy facilities, which typically employ only a few dozen people, haven't formed the rosiest relations with neighbors."The amount of energy these companies use is staggering," Jeremy Fisher, a senior strategy advisor with the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program, told me. In Rockdale, Texas, for example, a Riot Platforms mining facility uses 450 megawatts of energy — the equivalent of what's needed to power roughly 300,000 homes. Electricity is also becoming an increasingly pressing issue in the climate crisis. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/blackouts-power-outages-more-common-climate-change-electric-grid-infrastructure-2023-3">Power outages nationwide</a> have increased 64% since the early 2000s, and weather-related outages have increased 78%."At a moment when we need to be rapidly increasing the amount of renewable generation and shutting down fossil-fuel plants, proof-of-work cryptocurrency is pushing the wrong direction," Fisher said.Resistance to bitcoin mining has manifested largely at the local level. Frustrated locals in Murphy, North Carolina, Massillon, Ohio, and other places are signing petitions, forming coalitions, and creating YouTube channels to fight back against the mines in their towns. Gladys Anderson, who lives next to a mining facility in Bono, Arkansas, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://katv.com/news/local/chinese-owned-cryptocurrency-mining-facility-planned-in-vilonia-opposed-by-townsfolk-local-government-officials-mayor-preston-scroggins-chinese-government-communist-party-green-digital-llc-greenland-usa-greenland-holding-group-mike-matos-arkansas-hb-1799">spoke</a> about her experience at a town-council meeting for a proposed facility in Vilonia, Arkansas, last summer. "It's caused a lot of headaches," she said. Her son, who has autism, struggles to deal with the loud noise. "My son is currently in the backyard having a meltdown," she said. The Bit Mining facility in Akron has also faced pushback. "They're going to be using a lot of water, and electricity rates tend to go up for that sort of thing," Kelley Sayre, a resident there, said. A <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/bitcoin-mining-electricity-pollution.html?">New York Times</a> analysis found that the energy used by the Akron facility translated to 705,000 tons of CO2 emissions a year (roughly equal to the annual amount of emissions from two gas-fired power plants). Bit Mining didn't respond to a request for comment.The mayor's office of Akron isn't excited about the mine, either. "The bitcoin mining industry as a whole runs counter to this administration's values and policy goals," Stephanie Marsh, the director of communications for the city of Akron, said in a statement. "Digital mining operations consume an exorbitant amount of electricity, employ very few individuals, and take up a considerable amount of space." Marsh told me the city would prefer the space to be occupied by a company that could provide hundreds of jobs and contribute to the local economy. It's not clear what benefits the city gets from the Bit Mining facility.Countering local pushback is a powerful, ascendent new force: the bitcoin lobby. Tech companies and bitcoin investors are already having an impact on legislation in states like California, where, last September, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would've established a licensing and regulatory framework for "digital financial assets." His veto came after the crypto industry spent over $400,000 on lobbying efforts. That influence has grown to a federal level, too. Bitcoin lobbyists spent more than $20 million to ensure that Congress would block federal oversight of cryptocurrencies by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which it did in May."Bitcoin stands for freedom, sovereignty, and independence from government coercion and control," former President Donald Trump told crypto enthusiasts at July's Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, reversing his previous opposition to the coin, which he called a scam during his presidency. To thunderous applause, Trump promised to fire the chair of the SEC and position America as the "<a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/bitcoin-price-reaction-trump-us-crypto-capital-planet-comments-impact-2024-7">crypto capital of the planet</a>." In response, crypto investors and super PACs dumped millions into Trump's campaign.In 2008, bitcoin's inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, whose identity remains unknown, <a target="_blank" href="https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/quotes/motives/">described</a> the coin as "very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint." The supposed decentralized nature of the blockchain has attracted supporters who believe in free-market economics and techno-utopianism. Crypto enthusiasts dream of a world where financial institutions are replaced by decentralized cryptocurrencies, money that they say is inflation-proof.However, in recent years, bitcoin mining has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small number of private companies. In 2021, the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 10% of miners controlled 90% of the bitcoin-mining capacity. "The concentration of currency holding, processing power, and programming skills in the hands of one group of people who are effectively partners in a venture defeats the entire purpose of employing a blockchain structure," the economist Saifedean Ammous wrote in his book "The Bitcoin Standard."As it grows, the people who own this concentrated industry are becoming of particular interest to politicians concerned about the new Cold War with China.At a packed City Council <a target="_blank" href="https://massillonohio.gov/wp-content/uploads/03-18-24-Council-Mtg.pdf">meeting</a> in Massillon in March, many residents raised concerns about the proposed Bitdeer Inc. crypto-mining facility. The company owns mining facilities across the world and is listed on the Nasdaq; the proposed facility in Ohio would be made up of 30 buildings on 31 acres of land and employ 70 people. Cheyanne Diehl, a 29-year-old Massillon resident, said she wasn't just concerned about energy usage and noise but also had qualms with the company's country of origin. "Some of these questions you guys might not be able to answer, but I did want to know if there are any factors that might motivate a small American town to consider the construction of a bitcoin facility particularly when the facility's owner is a Chinese billionaire," she said. In April, Massillon's City Council ultimately voted 8-1 to move ahead with the facility in hopes of stimulating the economy. It's set to be constructed by next summer. In Arkansas, the backlash was so severe that the state reversed course on its laws allowing crypto mining and passed regulations this year addressing noise reduction, proximity to residential areas, and foreign ownership.The surge in cryptocurrency-mining operations owned by investors from China has prompted the Biden administration to keep a close eye on the industry. In May, President Joe Biden ordered a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-chinese-owned-bitcoin-operation-cheyenne-wyoming-microsoft-2023-10">mining company that is majority-owned by Chinese investors</a> to sell its facilities close to a nuclear-missile base in Wyoming, arguing it posed a security risk. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ft.com/content/a15bb35a-152e-4f8a-bdc2-f45b7497a92c">Liu Pengyu, claimed</a> that this kind of "politicization" of free trade undermined "international confidence in the US market environment."It's yet another touchstone amid the wider economic tension between the US and China. Across the economy, China seems to always be one step ahead of America. When <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/plastic-recycling-problem-america-waste-pyrolysis-big-oil-china-2024-4">China banned plastic imports</a>, the US suddenly had to deal with its own plastic waste. When China ramped up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-china-tech-war-computer-chips-semiconductor-plants-costing-americans-2023-1">making computer chips</a>, America rushed to catch up. And when <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cheap-chinese-electric-cars-will-upend-the-us-vehicle-market-2023-5">China put cheap electric vehicles</a> on the market, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-joe-biden-hikes-tariffs-on-chinese-made-evs-2024-5">US quickly imposed heavy tariffs</a> to avoid hurting the domestic EV market. Now, Chinese-owned mines are sucking the energy out of the US.For Fisher of the Sierra Club, the solution is multifaceted. He said it's important to have transparency and ensure regular electricity ratepayers aren't subsidizing bitcoin-mining facilities. "Right now, it's profitable to mine cryptocurrency at electricity costs that put steel mills out of business," he said. "We might need to implement fees to ensure that the grid stays affordable for ratepayers and industries." His final recommendation is an ambitious one: a moratorium on new mining facilities.Fisher isn't alone in calling for a pause on building new facilities. Harrison, Arkansas' City Council, for example, enforced a multimonth moratorium on a Green Digital facility after witnessing citywide opposition to the project. It ultimately greenlighted the project, but it showed that a city council was capable of enforcing a moratorium.Given how much energy bitcoin mining consumes, it's worth questioning whether its presence in the US is really worth the trade-off. The bitcoin lobby's rosy vision for the future has so far been confined to the realm of utopianism and, if left unchecked, could accelerate a climate dystopia for us all.<a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/taylor-dorrell">Taylor Dorrell</a> is a writer and photographer based in Columbus, Ohio.

Bitcoin miners got kicked out of China. Now they're sucking America dry.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Kamala Harris says she wants to 'cut red tape' to boost the housing supply and reduce costs.</li><li>There's new evidence out of Zurich that reducing restrictions on housing construction boosts supply.</li></ul>As part of her housing policy agenda, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-kamala-harris-plans-to-build-3-million-new-homes-2024-8">promised to</a> "cut red tape and needless bureaucracy" to build millions of additional homes and bring down costs.Economists and urban planners say that to make housing more abundant and affordable, we need to loosen zoning regulations in many neighborhoods and legalize the construction of denser, taller housing, such as duplexes, townhomes, and apartment buildings.A few countries have already figured out how to do that.Zurich, Switzerland offers the latest model. As a small, mountainous country with limited buildable land and high demand, Switzerland has long been sensitive to urban sprawl. Starting in the mid-1990s, Swiss citizens voted to densify various parts of the Canton of Zurich, one of the country's 26 states and home to its biggest city.<div type="image" title="Apartment buildings are pictured behind farm houses in Affoltern, just outside Zürich." height="837" width="1280" msid="113149723" hostid="261" sizebytes="224202"></div>The canton didn't uniformly alter its zoning laws. The citizens of each municipality voted on various proposals to "upzone" or allow more housing units by loosening zoning restrictions. The process was slow and staggered, and the average upzoning was quite incremental — think of a home with three floors that can add one extra floor. Much of the rezoning took place in neighborhoods surrounding Zurich's medieval city center, which is protected by historic preservation.Twenty-five years into this process, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119024000597#sec2">a new study by Swiss researchers</a> has found that upzoning boosted living space and housing units by a significant amount — about 9% in the subsequent five to 10 years — while keeping rent growth under control. The study found that areas that were hungriest for new housing were the most responsive to the policy changes. Areas with high demand, evidenced by high rents and home prices and already constrained by limits on housing, saw the most new construction. And the more density allowed, the more impactful the effect.One of the study's key findings is, "if you upzone, upzone a lot," said Simon Büchler, coauthor of the study and an assistant professor of finance at Miami University. "Give people the incentive to build."It provides more evidence that supply and demand can be harnessed to keep housing prices in check. Another example comes from New Zealand, where Auckland's upzoning measures legalizing the construction of medium-density housing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/america-lower-rents-home-prices-build-more-houses-new-zealand-2023-8">slowed down skyrocketing housing costs</a>. And <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29440/w29440.pdf">a study of São Paulo's upzoning</a> found similarly positive impacts.Zurich shows that upzoning is necessary but not sufficient. Allowing for more housing boosts affordability, but it takes time. There are a slew of other necessary fixes to bring housing costs down — from building-code changes to long-term expansion of services, infrastructure, and amenities."People think they're going to upzone and they're going to solve the affordability crisis in a couple of years. They're wrong," Büchler said. "This is a long-term solution, but it is a solution that's necessary and that works."<div type="image" title="Homes in the town of Küsnacht on the banks of Lake Zurich in Switzerland." height="696" width="1280" msid="113149727" hostid="261" sizebytes="131134"></div><h2 id="8d4a990d-dceb-46a3-a92c-5f7d590f5db3">Knee-capping NIMBYism</h2>There are a few elements of Swiss law and society that make parts of the country more welcoming to development and resistant to NIMBYism, or "Not In My Backyard" anti-development sentiment, that cripples so much new construction in the US.Unlike most American cities, Zurich is a society of renters rather than homeowners. More than 70% of households are tenants. While property owners are incentivized to oppose additional housing in their neighborhoods that would boost supply and depress their home values, renters tend to be much more supportive of development that keeps rents affordable.It also helps that European cities are generally more accomodating of higher-density living. A whopping <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ft.com/content/dca3f034-bfe8-4f21-bcdc-2b274053f0b5">64% of Swiss residents live in apartments</a>, compared to just 28% of US residents, and the country also has an especially comprehensive and well-connected public transportation network. While Zurich's <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.zh.ch/de/soziales/bevoelkerungszahlen.html?keyword=einwohner#/home">population has grown significantly</a> over the last quarter century, European cities tend to have more restrictive immigration laws than their counterparts in Canada, the US, and New Zealand."This evidence from Europe is important as it shows that upzoning can increase supply even in places where density is relatively more common and accepted, and overseas migration is less of a factor," Matthew Maltman, an Australian economist who's closely studied New Zealand's housing reforms, told Business Insider.There's also a lot of certainty around how regulations function in Zurich, as opposed to in the US or New Zealand, which include more veto points in the building process, Maltman said. While developers can't apply to local authorities to bypass zoning regulations, local residents also can't lobby to stop a project from happening if it abides by the rules.At the government level, municipalities are incentivized to welcome new residents because they disproportionately rely on income taxes for revenue, Büchler noted. Property taxes in Switzerland are very low, so the more density a city or town allows, the more income tax they can collect.Büchler plans to investigate how rent changes in Zurich compare with other parts of Switzerland to get a better sense of the price impacts of upzoning. Ideally, deregulating zoning would bring prices down. But Büchler considers it a win that rents were unchanged in Zurich, when adjusted for housing quality, even as the canton's population and demand for housing grew. "It doesn't mean that upzoning didn't help. What it means is that without the upzoning, we would have seen even more rent increases than what we've seen," he said.Zurich's example is crucial in informing policy change in places like the US because real-world evidence of the effects of upzoning can help convince governments and voters to act."Economists have argued the case for zoning reform based upon other evidence — usually based upon economic theory or sophisticated economic models," Maltman said. "It can be easier to sell the public on place X implemented policy Y and it had Z effect."

A Swiss city cut red tape and ended up with many more homes. It's a model for the US.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.</li></ul>Are you ready for some football?! The NFL season kicks off tonight with the reigning Super Bowl Champions/Taylor Swift's favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs, playing the Baltimore Ravens. If you're like many Americans, you might be placing a bet on the action. I wrote about why sports gambling's rise <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sports-gambling-weird-quirks-bets-nfl-nba-draftkings-fanduel-2024-9">has also made it a bit weird</a>.In today's big story, where the US economy is headed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-interest-rate-cuts-recession-outlook-federal-reserve-soft-landing-2024-9">could finally be answered with Friday's jobs report</a>.What's on deck:<ul><li>Markets: Nvidia investors should be <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nvidia-stock-price-outlook-technical-analysts-eye-danger-zone-levels-2024-9">focused on these two numbers</a>.</li><li>Tech: This healthcare startup's got a VC CEO doing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/healthcare-weirdest-startup-commure-blank-check-general-catalyst-hemant-taneja-2024-9">whatever it takes for it to succeed</a>.</li><li>Business: Inside America's wildest — and most lucrative — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-torts-lawsuits-lawyers-settlements-strippers-hard-partying-money-2024-9">lawsuits</a>.</li></ul>But first, one data point to rule them all.If this was forwarded to you, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/insider-today">sign up here.</a><h3 id="7fa5f018-5b05-4a37-a8dc-d3f89138bcb3">The big story</h3><h2 id="5fd547b9-ec52-41fc-8e08-4f4b27dd8097">All eyes on jobs</h2><div type="image" title="George Washington stands warily behind a fork in the road sign." height="877" width="1754" msid="113099191" hostid="261" sizebytes="144538"></div>It's so close you can almost taste it.The Federal Reserve is finally on the precipice of cutting interest rates. We're less than two weeks out from the Fed's September 18 meeting where the central bank is set to provide Americans with some much-needed relief.But one hurdle remains between now and then: Friday's job report.While the data won't jeopardize the central bank's decision to cut rates, it will help it decide how deep it will go. More broadly, a weak or strong report will also provide color on whether <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-interest-rate-cuts-recession-outlook-federal-reserve-soft-landing-2024-9">the economy is headed toward a soft or crash landing</a>, write Business Insider's Juliana Kaplan, Madison Hoff, and Ayelet Sheffey.The last jobs report before the Fed's decision was always bound to be a big one. But August's report became even more important after how things went last go around.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-rate-job-growth-july-labor-market-economic-data-2024-7">Unemployment unexpectedly jumped to 4.3%</a> and fewer jobs were added than economists expected in July's report. Coupled with some weak manufacturing data and shaky earnings, <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-selloff-today-jobs-report-recession-unemployment-tech-earnings-2024-8">the stock market started melting down</a>.Ultimately, the market was able to rally back. But the fear of the US slipping into a recession still remains. Friday's job report could go a long way in dispelling those fears or emboldening them.<div type="image" title="Photo illustration of Jerome Powell" height="750" width="1000" msid="113099194" hostid="261" sizebytes="41878"></div>Regardless of Friday's report, it's important to remember cutting interest rates won't create economic miracles.If unemployment spikes for a second month in a row, the Fed could offer a deeper rate cut than the typical 25 basis points. But it takes time for the effects of the policy to work its way through the economy.Bigger also isn't necessarily better when it comes to rate cuts. If the Fed believes it needs to take drastic measures, that's a bad sign for the state of the economy. And don't expect rate cuts <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/fed-interestrate-cuts-stock-market-bull-run-upside-outlook-jpmorgan-2024-9">to send stocks soaring</a>.I don't blame you if you're sick of this back-and-forth economy. Experts have waffled to and fro about where things are headed for more than a year.But at least Friday represents the end of the tunnel. The question is if it'll be bright or dark.<h3 id="77f31a4c-8462-4e3d-a71f-838cb79493fb">News brief</h3><h2 id="1fcd294b-3f53-425f-9f20-4093e8623b59">Top headlines</h2><ul><li>Elon Musk tweeted something <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-hitler-tucker-carlson-advertisers-2024-9">even he can't defend</a>.</li><li>Longtime Unilever media exec Luis Di Como is leaving <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/unilever-top-media-exec-luis-di-como-leave-amid-restructuring-2024-9">amid a broader shake-up of the business</a>.</li><li>Russia built a secret trade channel with India, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-india-payment-issues-us-west-sanctions-rupees-ukraine-war-2024-9">leaked documents</a> show.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennium-technology-prize-baliga-semiconductor-invention-igbt-changed-world-2024-9">Meet the professor</a> who just won the Millennium Technology Prize — and $1.1 million.</li><li>A top New York official was <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/linda-sun-new-york-governor-top-aide-salted-ducks-china-2024-9">paid off by China</a> with salted ducks, a job for her cousin, and millions to her husband's business: DOJ.</li><li>Barron Trump is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/barron-trump-attending-new-york-university-college-2024-9">going to NYU</a>.</li></ul><h2 id="8120060b-ae66-48dc-b149-f0489a30ffa2">3 things in markets</h2><div type="image" title="Photo illustration of Jensen Huang" height="1000" width="1333" msid="113099203" hostid="261" sizebytes="150634"></div><ol><li>Nvidia's two all-important numbers. After a volatile few days of trading, technical analysts are looking at the <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nvidia-stock-price-outlook-technical-analysts-eye-danger-zone-levels-2024-9">psychological $100 level and then the 200-day moving average</a>, which is just below $90. If Nvidia's share price drops below the latter, "NVDA's market leadership status may be lost," LPL technical strategist Adam Turnquist told BI.</li><li>The latest casualty of AI: Oil prices. Goldman Sachs analysts believe the tech will improve logistics and boost oil recovery. Even with the higher demand to power AI, the increased supply <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/ai-oil-prices-productivity-logistics-supply-demand-energy-goldman-sachs-2024-9">will drive prices down over the next decade</a>. But the "Dr. Doom" economist sees oil prices going the other way amid <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/economy-oil-prices-outlook-stagflation-israel-iran-war-nouriel-roubini-2024-9">deepening conflicts in the Middle East</a>.</li><li>The road to November will be rocky for stocks. Market vet Ed Yardeni sees market "choppiness" in the lead up to the US presidential election. But don't worry. Record highs could be back on the menu, <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-outlook-volatility-presidential-election-ed-yardeni-gridlock-selloff-2024-9">depending on how things go</a>.</li></ol><h2 id="f4b54806-7f81-450c-ba32-92560d4fae9b">3 things in tech</h2><div type="image" title="Photo illustration of Hemant Taneja." height="1500" width="2000" msid="113099197" hostid="261" sizebytes="249928"></div><ol><li>The weirdest startup in healthcare has a blank check from a top VC firm. Usually, startups must fight tooth and nail to prove they're worthy of investors' attention. The healthcare startup Commure has an unusual advantage: its cofounder is the CEO of General Catalyst. He'll do <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/healthcare-weirdest-startup-commure-blank-check-general-catalyst-hemant-taneja-2024-9">whatever it takes</a> to see the startup win.</li><li>How to survive online in the age of AI. AI models and chatbots are changing how online information is consumed, affecting website traffic. In order to stay relevant in this new digital ecosystem, website owners need speed and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/frontier-content-survive-online-ai-2024-9">exclusive "frontier content"</a> their viewers can't get anywhere else.</li><li>Apple and Meta can't stop fighting over who's in charge of protecting the kids. Everyone and their mother is mad at Mark Zuckerberg's company for contributing to the youth mental health crisis. Meta says it should be up to the App Store to verify users' ages, but <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-apple-feud-app-store-child-teen-mental-health-2024-9">Apple won't budge</a>.</li></ol><h2 id="9260fa45-d397-4b3c-b4f8-4bb193976216">3 things in business</h2><div type="image" title="A skull in the middle of objects that have been subject to mass torts." height="1800" width="2400" msid="113099201" hostid="261" sizebytes="797548"></div><ol><li>You may be entitled to financial compensation. Mass torts allow hundreds of thousands of people to seek damages for harm caused by things like asbestos, contaminated water, or carcinogenic baby powder. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-torts-lawsuits-lawyers-settlements-strippers-hard-partying-money-2024-9">Here's how they took over America's courts</a>.</li><li>ESPN's Big Apple betting dreams. The sports network is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/espn-bet-new-york-launch-online-sports-betting-fanduel-draftkings-2024-9">launching ESPN Bet in New York</a> as football season begins. Though the betting app may be regaining some momentum, it's going to be tough to beat FanDuel and DraftKings.</li><li>Andreessen Horowitz says adios to Miami. The VC firm has reportedly <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/andreessen-horowitz-leaves-miami-florida-office-report-2024-9">abandoned its South Florida office</a> just two years into a five-year lease, a sign that the recent tech and crypto migration to Miami may be short-lived.</li></ol><h2 id="1ad7b482-3f4b-44b4-81b6-a864aa386478">In other news</h2><ul><li>You don't have to be a millionaire to retire before 50, an accountant says. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/accountant-retired-before-50-without-1-million-savings-2024-9">Here's how she did it</a>.</li><li>Why 'fake heiress' Anna Sorokin, quietly released from house arrest, can <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/anna-sorokin-house-arrest-dancing-with-the-stars-ankle-monitor-2024-9">compete in 'Dancing With the Stars'</a> with an ankle monitor.</li><li>Raising Cane's just offered a rare glimpse into its finances — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/raising-canes-revenue-private-debt-offering-todd-graves-net-worth-2024-9">and the chicken-finger giant is growing like crazy</a>.</li><li>This leaked 2007 DoubleClick pitch deck is set to play a central role in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-deck-doubleclick-acquisition-pitch-google-adtech-antitrust-trial-2024-9">Google's blockbuster adtech antitrust trial</a>.</li><li>George R. R. Martin criticized the changes made by 'House of the Dragon' <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/george-rr-martin-house-of-the-dragon-changes-criticism-maelor-2024-9">in a quickly deleted blog post</a>.</li><li>Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says women founders say they can't go 'founder mode' like men and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-ceo-brian-chesky-women-say-cant-go-founder-mode-2024-9">that it needs to change</a>.</li></ul><h2 id="9f5d80ac-3466-429f-a50a-2ffbb70c65ff">What's happening today</h2><ul><li>Court hearing in Donald Trump's Jan. 6 case after Supreme Court ruled acts covered by presidential immunity.</li><li>Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) begins.</li></ul>The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Milan Sehmbi, fellow, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.

US economy's fate hangs on jobs report as Fed decides how deep cuts will go

<ul class="summary-list"><li>All those Florida transplants might have the ticket to riding out the next possible recession.</li><li>Florida's population growth is boosting the state's economy.</li></ul>People are still <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/top-states-americans-are-moving-to-florida-texas-california-2023-10">flocking to Florida</a> — and it could help residents ride out a potential economic slowdown.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://wellsfargo.bluematrix.com/links2/html/3a069c29-855f-465a-9981-3032b2e1cbcb">Economists at Wells Fargo</a> wrote in a report published on August 27 that they expect the Sunshine State's economy to fare better than the national average in the case of a slowdown, as strong population growth over the last five years has boosted the state's economic growth.This comes as the Sahm rule — a closely watched recession indicator created by Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist — was <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sahm-rule-recession-outlook-indicator-triggered-unemployment-rate-jobs-report-2024-8">triggered on August 2</a> after a surprise jump in US unemployment. To be sure, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sahm-rule-recession-unemployment-federal-reserve-interest-rates-cut-2024-8">economists, including Sahm, are conflicted</a> on whether it's correct this time.Florida's economic growth has outpaced the nation on an annual basis for the past 11 years, according to Wells Fargo. What's more, the state's economy grew at the sixth fastest pace in the nation in the first quarter of this year.Jackie Benson, an economist at Wells Fargo and one of the report's authors, told Business Insider that Florida's growth is due to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-people-moving-florida-home-prices-cost-of-living-2023-12">influx of new residents</a>. The state's above-average population growth has helped it outpace the nation in real GDP growth, Benson said.<h2 id="04ae2956-1ac5-4716-86f9-81c069b69280">Population growth insulates the state</h2>Florida had the second-fastest state population growth in 2023, following South Carolina, according to data from the US Commerce Department and Wells Fargo.There were nearly 195,000 domestic movers and 178,000 foreign movers on net relocating to Florida in 2023, according to Wells Fargo. From 2000 to 2019, the average number of domestic relocations to Florida was roughly 140,000.Benson said an influx of residents means more workers in the labor force, more people buying homes, and more people spending money at the grocery store."That creates a feedback loop that kind of insulates an economy from a broader macroeconomic slowdown that might drag certain states down," Benson said. "If you have greater population growth, your chances of growing better through that is increased."Wells Fargo said population growth is a tailwind for Florida, and post-pandemic shifts in migration have <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-economy-us-south-texas-florida-houston-dallas-nashville-miami-2023-12">benefited states in the Sun Belt</a>, including the Southeast and Southwest. Nonetheless, Benson said people have been moving into Florida before the COVID-19 pandemic.Business Insider has previously reported on <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moving-from-california-to-florida-pros-cons-weather-politics-facebook-2024-3">movers to Florida</a> from coastal hubs like New York and California."A lot of people are looking for family reasons or homebuying reasons, just quality of life or lower cost of living," Benson said. "That's kind of what drives them down south, and with Florida, it's a lifestyle, too, right? Warmer weather and a more relaxed atmosphere."<h2 id="55f6ca74-0858-43a8-93c2-7d0fc09509e5">Movers to Florida might fare better than the average</h2>Wells Fargo did not forecast an upcoming recession, Benson said. However, it does expect a slowdown."We are expecting momentum to slow," Benson said. "That's largely driven by a deceleration in the labor market that is already starting to happen."Wells Fargo economists noted in the report that Florida's unemployment rate has recently moved higher with national trends and might be losing some momentum but is still "comfortably below" the national average."There are some signs of caution, particularly when it comes to rising unemployment," Benson said. "I don't think Florida will be completely insulated from this slowdown, given that the labor market is showing signs of cracks, but I would expect it to perform better than other states do."In 2023, nearly half of Florida's job gains were concentrated in healthcare, construction, and government. Construction jobs grew 5.1% year over year, the fastest rate of any job in the state.In particular, South Florida is performing well. The Miami metro area was responsible for almost 30% of the state's job gains in 2023, according to Wells Fargo.To be sure, if the country did enter a recession, Florida would be impacted.Job growth in Florida's information and finance sectors lagged in 2023, largely due to high interest rates, according to Wells Fargo. Yet, Benson said she expects the Federal Reserve to cut rates in September, which would bode well for those industries.One sector most at risk in case of slowdown is Florida's leisure and hospitality sector, however international travelers could help keep it afloat.Are you an entrepreneur in Florida who has seen your business change due to the influx of new residents? This reporter wants to hear from you. Please reach out at <a target="_blank" class="" href="mailto:jtowfighi@businessinsider.com">jtowfighi@businessinsider.com.</a>

You Searched For "migration" and got 9 results

3 reasons why Russia's economy can survive without crisis for up to 5 more years, think-tank economists say

Filip De Mott

We asked 3 migration firms about what they're hearing in the first 48 hours after the election

Maria Noyen,Shubhangi Goel

Arizona is the epicenter of the debate over how Trump's mass deportation plan would hit the economy

Noah Sheidlower

China lost 36% of its billionaires to years of economic troubles and crackdowns

Hannah Abraham

Spain is betting on immigrants to boost its economy

Rebecca Rommen,Nathan Rennolds

Bitcoin miners got kicked out of China. Now they're sucking America dry.

Taylor Dorrell

A Swiss city cut red tape and ended up with many more homes. It's a model for the US.

Eliza Relman

US economy's fate hangs on jobs report as Fed decides how deep cuts will go

Dan DeFrancesco

People are still flocking to Florida. It could help them ride out a slowdown in the economy.

John Towfighi

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides