Brazil and US Against Gasoline Rise, Musk Sued for Crypto Crash and What Matters in the Market

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Brazil and US face high gasoline prices

Fuel prices have affected the popularity of Brazilian and US presidents. This is during an election year (for the presidency here and for the legislature there).

What have Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and Joe Biden been doing to try to alleviate the rise in these items?

Here:

• After having changed the president of Petrobras twice this year, the government plans to expand Auxílio Gás and create aid for self-employed truck drivers of up to R$1000.

• Increase in taxes on oil companies and a fund to stabilize prices are also mentioned.

There: facing a possible defeat in the midterm legislative elections, which would cause Democrats to lose their majority in Congress, Biden is also moving.

It works? The measures should not solve the problem, according to experts. Oil is a commodity and varies according to a series of international factors – from the level of production in Arab countries to the aftermath of the war in Ukraine.

Falling oil: the Brent barrel, an international benchmark, fell 4% this Wednesday, for US$ 109.99 (R$ 566.48), in the face of an increasingly strong signal for a future recession in the US.

The ‘Hidden’ Benefits of Cards

In addition to the more traditional benefits offered by credit card brands, such as access to VIP lounges at airports and travel insurance, there are other lesser-known benefits that can make life and pockets easier for consumers: protected purchase and price protection.

Companies use these resources to encourage consumers to buy, an operation in which they earn a percentage. The revolving interest rates are very high, so it is important to be responsible with these expenses.

Understand the advantages of each option:

purchase protection: a kind of insurance for cases of robbery, theft or physical damage to the goods purchased with the card, valid for a period after the purchase. Conditions vary between flags, see details here.

• Cards that offer the benefit: Mastercard (Gold and Black); Visa (Gold, Platinum, Signature and Infinite); Elo (Elo Mais, Elo Grafite, Elo Nanquim and Elo Diners Club); American Express (Santander Gold and Platinum)

price protection: For situations where a product recently purchased with the card is advertised at a lower price. In this case, the flags can refund the differences. See the different criteria here.

• Cards that offer the benefit: Mastercard (Gold); Visa (Gold, Platinum, Signature and Infinite).

Google expands deals

Google has entered into an agreement with Wikipedia, one of the most visited sites in the world, to hire an enhanced version of its services.

Understand: Wikipedia’s new service makes it easy for customers to share their content. The search engine is a long-time partner of the site, helping to fund it with grants and donations.

• Google uses the material for its “knowledge panel”, a sidebar that tracks top search results.

why it matters: the agreement reinforces big tech’s positioning of remunerating sites that produce content on the internet.

Investor wants BRL 1.3 trillion from Musk

An investor in dogecoin, one of those meme cryptocurrencies that took off last year, accuses billionaire Elon Musk and his Tesla and SpaceX companies of creating a pyramid scheme with the crypto asset.

He claims he felt cheated and asks $258 billion (R$ 1.3 trillion) as compensation.

Understand: dogecoin was born in 2013 as a joke, but it took off with other cryptos last year, when it was bought by investors organized on forums – today it is worth about 10% of its maximum.

• It was around that time that Musk took to Twitter to join in on the joke, which made his value skyrocket even further.

• Tesla and SpaceX were cited because the automaker accepts dogecoin as payment and the startup named one of its satellites after crypto.

Is different: The financial pyramid crime is characterized by having a head of the scheme that raises money from new participants with promises of easy money.

• When the flow of new members stops, the pyramid collapses, leaving those at the bottom of the scheme at a loss.

More about Musk:

• His 18-year-old transgender daughter filed a request for a name change over gender issues and also decided to remove her famous father’s last name.