The US Federal Reserve System (Fed) has announced that it will raise interest rates. They have been at zero since the start of the pandemic and since the last recession in 2009, they hit their highest level in 2019. But even in 2019, they were very low, with an effective rate of about 2.5%.
While for the second year now we have been tracking new numbers of coronavirus-related cases and deaths several times a day, and estimates for the cost of the economic lockdown range between two and four billion CZK a day (for the Czech Republic), another crucial figure has escaped our attention.
The term “wage” and its size are very important in national discussions about labor markets, taxes, and insurance payments, but also as a part of international comparisons for investors deciding to build a factory or place investments in a specific country.
The new policy paper prepared by the Central European Institute of Asian Studies in collaboration with the Association for International Affairs provides a comprehensive account of Czech and Slovak paradiplomatic activity towards China.
The vaccinated are already ignoring the pandemic on a personal level – and the unvaccinated are too. (Un)vaccination has become a hard political stance and nothing can be done about it.
Václav Havel, for what is sure, had generally no great respect towards authorities, certainly not for the bureaucratic authorities of the “very real socialism” that ruled over in his homeland.
Unfortunately, we will not celebrate the fifth year of the Bureaucracy Index in the Czech Republic with a reduction in the administrative burden. The bureaucratic burden on small businesses increased by 49 hours year-on-year to 272 hours.
Throughout the last year and a half, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed weaknesses in healthcare, education, digitalization, and data collection, just to name a few. The shortages of essential goods experienced by many countries during the pandemic has inspired some to turn inwards.
On January 20, 2021, the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic approved an amendment to the Food Act proposed by the SPD, which implements an unprecedented anti-market measure in the form of food sales quotas into Czech legislation.
Anyone who thinks that the German parliamentary elections were particularly exciting and uncertain in their results has not yet dealt with the hot campaign phase in the Czech Republic. There, the new Chamber of Deputies will be elected on Friday and Saturday this week.
