Market increases projection for inflation, new Musk offensive against Twitter and what matters in the economy

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coup of love

The growth of crimes known as “coup do amor” has drawn the attention of Brazilian authorities.

Understand: Fraud schemes vary, but in all of them criminals involve the victim sentimentally in order to get some money out of them.

• The practice is not unheard of, but it became more frequent on social networks, environments that facilitate ideological falsehood – when one person impersonates another.

THE Sheet showed on Sunday (5) the case of a victim in São Paulo who lost about BRL 600 thousand with a scam that started on Tinder and ended up on a fake cryptocurrency exchange.

How to identify? Some patterns often appear in these cases:

• The person claims to be a foreigner and shows the intention to live in Brazil;

• The photo is stolen from someone else from the internet and the WhatsApp number is international;

• At one time or another the money will appear during the conversation.

Crypto Scams: an FTC (US Federal Trade Commission) report indicates that more than 46,000 people reported having lost more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency scams since early 2021.

• Of this total, about $575 million involved false investment opportunities, and nearly half of victims said the scams started with an advertisement, post or social media message.

• A report by Reuters shows how Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, has become a hub for hackers, fraud and drug dealers.

Bolsonaro promises package of up to R$50 billion for fuel

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) announced this Monday (6th) a package of up to BRL 50 billion in measures to try to reduce the price of fuel.

Understand: this is the cost cited by members of the economic team for a package that involves, by the end of 2022, zeroing federal taxes (PIS/Cofins and Cide) on gasoline and ethanol and reimbursing states that do not charge ICMS on diesel and cooking gas .

• The government has already zeroed for three months the PIS and Cofins rates on these two items by the end of the year.

In the states: to return the resources to the entities that eliminate the state tax on diesel and cooking gas, Planalto intends to send a PEC to Congress.

• This was the alternative designed to leave out of the expenditure ceiling the expense to reimburse the loved ones. The measure gained strength over the option of a new decree of public calamity, as advocated by members of the political wing of the government.

What explains: it is not new that the rise in fuel prices has generated headaches in the Planalto. The matter has been a priority since last year in the government and a solution is considered fundamental by the president’s reelection campaign.

Market sees higher inflation

The market once again raised its forecasts for inflation in the country at the end of this year and next and also readjusted its expectations for GDP in 2022 upwards.

This is what the Focus survey, carried out by the BC with economists from more than 100 financial institutions, shows. This Monday’s bulletin is partial and the survey had not been carried out since the beginning of May, in the face of the strike by the civil servants of the municipality.

In numbers:

• Inflation: analysts continue to raise their estimates for the IPCA. For 2022, the median jumped from 7.89% to 8.89% (well above the target ceiling of 5%). For 2023, it went from 4.10% to 4.39% (the center of the target for the year is 3.25%).

• Selic: the market maintained its bet that the basic interest rate will remain in 13.25% at the end of the year – with an increase of 0.5 percentage point at the next Copom meeting. By the end of 2023, the expectation is to 9.75%up from 9.25% in the last survey.

Inflation effects:

• Sales for Valentine’s Day should register a drop of 2.6% this year before 2021, calculates the CNC (National Confederation of Trade in Goods, Services and Tourism). Rising prices are blamed as the main culprit.

• The lack of food can take away part of the joy of the return of the June festivities. In a basket with 35 foods and beverages measured by the IPCA-15, 34 were more expensive in the 12-month period up to May.

• Highlight for the tomato, used in the hot dog sauce, which soared 80.48% in the period.

Musk makes official threat to quit Twitter

Elon Musk made it official, through a document sent to Twitter, that he can give up the purchase of the social network if it does not provide him with data about spam and fake accounts on the platform.

Understand: The billionaire had already used this argument when he posted on his social media account that the purchase was on hold. This time, however, the threat was formalized. He disputes the network’s claim that less than 5% of its users are robots.

• The text states that Twitter is in a “clear material breach” of its obligations and that Musk reserves all rights to terminate the purchase agreement.

Remember: when Musk complained on Twitter about the lack of access to fake account data, the social network’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, said that this estimate could not be made by a third party because it involves use of public and private information. The billionaire then responded with a poop emoji.

Why data matters: fake accounts decrease the indicator of daily active users, a very important metric for social networks. It is used by companies as a criterion for advertising on platforms.