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Warnings from economists Pension system on the brink of collapse?

Status: 21.06.2021 10:35 a.m.

Too few contributors and high household burdens – experts repeatedly point out the problems of statutory pension insurance. Does that inevitably lead to retirement at 68 or even 70? By Andreas Braun, tagesschau.de The criticism of the German pension insurance system, which has been publicly discussed for weeks, is sharp. The entire structure of the pay-as-you-go pension has been called into question by economists in recent weeks. Many of the criticisms have been known for a long time, but above all caused a stir Paper of the scientific advisory board at the Federal Ministry of Economics , an advisory body within the federal government. Economics Minister Peter Altmaier himself presented the committee’s proposals as “not binding” on his ministry The advisory board is “independent”.

Pension and contribution guarantees aggravate the situation

With their description of the state of the German pension insurance system, the authors of the study are anything but alone among experts. You see “suddenly increasing financing problems” approaching the pension funds. These problems are mainly caused by the guarantee of the pension level introduced in 2018 at 48 percent of the average wage and the limitation of pension contributions to a maximum of 20 percent.

Together with the introduction of the “pension at 63”, this led to the deficit within the pension insurance system being further expanded. More than a quarter of the federal budget had to be diverted to the pension fund in 2019 to fill this gap. In 2040, almost half of the federal funds are threatened to be used for this.

Increasing life expectancy

The conclusion of the economists of the advisory board with its chairman, the Munich economics professor Klaus M. Schmidt, reads: The coupling of the retirement age to life expectancy is “inevitable”. So if Germans tend to live longer and receive longer pensions, the start of retirement will have to be pushed back accordingly. This would correspond to a “pension at 68” in around 20 years.

In addition, the experts are calling for pension increases no longer to be carried out consistently in the future. While existing pensions should only increase with the development of purchasing power, a guarantee of 48 percent, for example, can still be guaranteed for “access pensions”, ie employees who are going into retirement.

Criticism of “unsocial” proposals

While politicians from many parties immediately criticized the committee’s proposals as “anti-social” or unrealistic, the authors also received support from academia from other quarters. The researchers from the employer-related Institute of the German Economy (IW) also see a further extension of the working life as a sensible way to stabilize the German pension system.

IW study director Jochen Pimpertz sees this as an opportunity “to slow down the rise in premiums and at the same time to stabilize the security level”. He recommends raising the retirement age from 2031 by two months for each year of birth. In 2052, the standard retirement age would then be 70 years. The Freiburg economist Bernd Raffelhüschen also sees a dramatic need for reform in the pension system in Germany. The federal government can only choose between “plague and cholera,” he said in a recent interview. Either the contribution rates for the pension fund or the federal subsidy would have to be drastically increased. In the past few years, the federal government gave the “majority of the elderly” too generous gifts, he said.

Swedish stock pension model

Martin Werding, professor at the Ruhr University in Bochum, is calling for a radical move away from today’s pure pay-as-you-go financing. Werding has calculated that a “share pension”, in which employees invest two percent of their gross income in an equity fund, could increase pension payments by up to 30 percent for average earners who have been insured for many years. The consumer advice centers also consider such a provision component, which is based, for example, on the Swedish pension model, to be sensible. Klaus Müller, member of the board of directors of the Federal Association of Consumer Organizations, sees the share investment as an opportunity to get “more money in old age” for insured persons.

But even a fundamental reform of the pension system is unlikely to close the gap between earned income and retirement income for many contributors. The Riester pension, which was introduced around 20 years ago , however, many experts are convinced that it is hardly suitable for this. There are increasing votes for Riester subsidies to expire under a new federal government in autumn. A prominent critic of the Riester model is, for example, the economist and former “economy” Bert Rürup. He advocates pension accounts that could be managed by a foundation and should be accessible to all citizens. Here, too, the idea is that additional contributions are invested primarily in the capital market and converted into payment plans in old age that supplement the statutory pension

EY study Corona is changing the pharmaceutical industry

Status: June 21, 2021 3:53 p.m.

The corona pandemic did not give the pharmaceutical industry a boost in 2020, it actually slowed it down. According to an EY study, only cancer medicine and ophthalmology are booming.

by Notker Blechner, tagesschau.de

Is “Big Pharma” but not a beneficiary of the corona pandemic? The management consultants from EY (formerly Ernst & Young) are convinced: “The corona crisis was not a growth driver in the past year, on the contrary, it led to higher spending on research and development”, says Klaus Ort, head of EY’s Life Sciences & Healthcare market segment in German-speaking countries. “The pharmaceutical industry wasn’t a big winner from the pandemic.” In fact, sales of the world’s 21 largest pharmaceutical companies rose by just 4.4 percent in 2020. In the year before the pandemic, the increase was almost 13 percent. However, this was also due to a billion-dollar takeover in the industry.

Corona slowed growth

According to Ort, Corona led to delays in various treatments. Among other things, the fact that fewer operations were carried out in hospitals had a negative effect. This slowed down sales of the corresponding drugs and therapies. In the case of funds for heart and circulatory diseases, for example, revenues stagnated after having increased significantly in 2019. Sales of therapeutics for respiratory diseases even fell. Place refers to the wearing of face and nose masks as the reason, which also prevented infectious diseases such as flu.

Corona surge will not come until 2021

With sales of 26.4 billion euros, vaccines only made up a good five percent of total sales last year “Big Pharma” out. That should change in 2021. The US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has already announced that the corona vaccine Comirnaty will flush a good 15 billion dollars into the coffers. That’s a good quarter of Pfizer’s total sales. “At Pfizer, Corona will only have an impact on sales in 2021″says EY expert Ort.

Pfizer partner BioNTech also expects an enormous growth spurt in new, unimagined dimensions this year. The Mainz corona vaccine pioneer expects sales of 9.8 billion euros for 2021 and should thus become the third largest German pharmaceutical manufacturer – behind Bayer and Boehringer.

766 Covid vaccines and therapeutics pending

EY was unable to quantify how high the market volume for combating corona is. However, the management consultants see huge potential. They refer to 260 vaccine candidates who are currently in studies. So far, only four vaccines have been approved. “The four big players dominate the market and will continue to do so”, predicts Alexander Nuyken, co-author of the study and head of life sciences transaction consulting at EY. Because of the increasing number of mutations, the hurdle for approval will become higher and higher in future.

EY has found out that 506 therapeutics are in the pipeline for drugs against Covid-19. However, no means of this have yet managed to obtain approval. “Despite all the vaccination euphoria, one should not lose sight of this fact”, warns EY expert Nuyken. People are still dying of Covid-19 due to a lack of medication. After all, the number of drug candidates has doubled since the end of 2020. And: 162 therapeutics are in the clinical phase III study. The most promising means is considered the cortisone drug dexamethasone . According to a large-scale study by Oxford University, it lowers the death rate of seriously ill Covid patients by at least 25 percent. In the initial phase of the corona disease, Remdesivir, which was the first Covid drug approved in Europe, also works – albeit only under certain conditions.

Price drop for corona tests

The EY experts see the market for corona tests as completely oversaturated. There are currently 1,021 diagnostic tests on the market, more than half of which are so-called immunassays (including rapid antigen tests). “We see a drop in prices here”says EY expert Nuyken. Individual drugstore and supermarket chains are now offering self-tests for 80 cents.

Thanks to Corona, the vaccine business has experienced a renaissance, emphasize the EY experts. The biotech sector in particular benefits. Due to new trends such as digitization as well as gene and cell therapies, it is on the threshold of further growth. According to EY, the German biotechs received more capital in 2020 than ever before.

Cancer medicine is the major growth driver

The main market for “Big Pharma” but oncology remains. In the fight against cancer, the industry has a turnover of over 200 billion euros, which is more than a third of the entire pharmaceutical business. In 2020, the world’s 21 largest pharmaceutical companies increased their sales in oncology by 14.6 percent. Experts are also predicting growth rates of ten percent for the coming years. Only ophthalmology promises similarly strong growth. Because of the trend towards home office in the pandemic, myopia increased in many people, especially children.

Biotech companies could provide a new boost in the cancer market. Amgen recently made a breakthrough in cancer therapy with Lumakras. For the first time, an active ingredient was approved that is directed against mutations in the KRAS gene. The KRAS mutations are one of the most common causes of pancreatic, colon and lung cancers. The mRNA technology that BioNTech and Moderna are successfully using in the fight against Corona also promises huge potential for cancer research.

Hope in the fight against Alzheimer’s

Biotech could also bring progress in the fight against Alzheimer’s. In early June, Biogen received “green light” for the active ingredient aducanumab . It is the first Alzheimer’s drug to receive FDA approval since 2003.

According to the study by EY, the Swiss Roche Group has maintained its top position in the ranking of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies with 43.4 billion euros. AbbVie climbed to second place – just ahead of Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co. Pfizer slipped to sixth place in the rankings. Due to the corona surge, the US pharmaceutical giant should regain the top spot in 2021

China’s anti-sanctions law Another setback for relationships

Status: 16.06.2021 10:30 a.m.

With the anti-sanctions law, China has created an instrument against foreign companies. Anyone who adheres to EU or US penalties against Beijing faces retribution. The industry is unsettled. From Steffen Wurzel, ARD studio Shanghai Many foreign business representatives see the new anti-sanctions law as a further setback for the relationship between Europe and China. As usual, the European Chamber of Commerce, the largest lobbying association of foreign companies in the People’s Republic, spoke up. The law continues to politicize dealings with China, so the criticism. “Basically, it ranges from uncertainty to shock,” said Chamber President Jörg Wuttke, describing the reactions of the member companies.

“Sovereignty inviolable”

With the new anti-sanctions law, the communist leadership in Beijing can punish foreign companies in the future; For example, if these sanctions follow, for example, the EU or the USA, which are directed against human rights violations in China. This could affect the textile industry, for example: If the EU should decide to sanction cotton companies from the Xinjiang region because there are strong indications of forced labor there, then China’s leadership could say the other way around to foreign textile and sporting goods manufacturers: You are only allowed to continue in China Do business if you specifically use Xinjiang cotton.

07/30/2020

“With this law, China shows that the sovereignty, the dignity, the core interests and the development interests of the People’s Republic are inviolable”, the constitutional lawyer Li Qingming of the State Chinese Academy for Social Studies defended the measure on the television channel CCTV. The state defends all of this. “We are resolutely opposed to the hegemonic striving and power politics of the West.”

Legal security for the government

Foreign observers in China criticized the fact that the law leaves much in the dark. The whole thing is “nebulous,” said a European diplomat ARD . It is clear, however, that the anti-sanctions law will not change much in the matter. Because the People’s Republic is not a constitutional state, and even without a legal basis, the communist leadership has repeatedly punished foreign companies and even entire states in the past. With the new law, however, the government can now deal with uncomfortable foreign actors in a supposedly legally secure manner.

March 22, 2021

“Text kept very vague”

The President of the European Chamber of Commerce, Wuttke, called the law a new “toolkit” for the government. “You can worry when you see the text. The text is – typically Chinese – very vague. So you could interpret everything into it,” he said. The draft law, which the members only saw as a finished law, includes very large circles. Even family members and subcontractors could be punished.

02.12.2020

The passing of the anti-sanctions law has created a lot of uncertainty among foreign companies in China. But there are also other voices. The head of a German middle class center in Kunshan near Shanghai said the ARD : Many German companies with which he has to do take note of such news calmly. According to the motto: The decisions of the state leadership in Beijing cannot be changed anyway.

Some foreign technology experts predict the event will take place on August 3, but it is likely that the event will take place later than expected. Some sources from Samsung said that the Korean technology giant is expected to hold an online event called “Galaxy Unpacked” right in August to introduce two Galaxy Z Fold3 smartphone models. and Galaxy Z Flip3 before officially launching these products at the end of the month. At the event, it is likely that Samsung will also unveil the Galaxy Watch 4 smart watch and Galaxy Buds 2 wireless headset. Galaxy S21 FE smartphone alone will not be introduced at this event but may be. to be marketed next September or October. There is currently no confirmed information about Samsung’s upcoming foldable smartphone, but technology experts predict that the Galaxy Z Fold3 will have a camera hidden under the folding screen and support for the S-Pen stylus. . Particularly, the Galaxy Z Flip3 phone is expected to have a larger rear screen, sharing a protective glass layer with a pair of 3 main cameras including 2 wide-angle lenses and 1 super-wide tube on the outside, especially with a camera on the front. in front of the phone hidden under the screen. Both these foldable smartphone products are expected to be lighter in weight and cheaper in price than their predecessors. The Galaxy Watch4 smartwatch is said to use Google’s Wear OS. Samsung has also previously announced that it will develop a smartwatch platform that merges with Google. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Buds 2 are expected to be cheap wireless headphones, but without the option of active noise control. Technology experts say the early launch of these new smartphone models is to fill the gap of the Galaxy Note series, which Samsung is scheduled to launch in August every year. According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung was ranked as the world’s top smartphone vendor in the first quarter of 2021 after shipping 77 million smartphones, accounting for 23% of the market share. ./.

Note 20 Ultra remains faithful to the square design, 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X borderless screen, HDR10+ support, 120 Hz refresh rate to help display images smoother, reducing slight jerks when transitions use. It would be a huge omission if not to mention the S Pen, the new version feels more real and responds faster (9 ms). The feeling of writing is also more real, similar to when you are writing on the surface of paper. The back of the device is a large camera cluster with a main sensor of up to 108 MP, a 12 MP super wide-angle sensor, a 12 MP telephoto camera, supporting optical image stabilization. Meanwhile, the selfie camera has a resolution of 10 MP, placed inside a “mole” on the screen. Note 20 Ultra costs only 17.9 million. Photo: Qefira Of course, the device still fully supports professional photography and video recording modes, such as 8K video recording, slow-motion 120 fps (fps) … In terms of hardware, the device is equipped with Snapdragon 865+ processor (US market) and Exynos 990 in other markets, including Vietnam. The battery of the device has a capacity of 4,500 mAh, supports 25 W fast charging (30 minutes to charge 50% of the battery). Another feature on the Note 20 Ultra is Samsung Dex, which supports wireless connections with other devices. The product is currently being sold in three colors white, black and copper with a price of 17.9 million VND for 8 GB RAM version, 256 GB internal memory, down nearly 12 million VND in less than a year. Besides, some mid-range Samsung products are also being discounted by 1 million dong in June 2021, such as Galaxy A32, A52 and A72. These three products are being discounted by retail stores to VND 5.4 million, VND 7.59 million and VND 9.69 million, respectively.

Tab S8 and Tab S8 + this version are equipped with memory capacity options of 8GB / 128GB and 8GB / 256GB, with dual 13MP + 5MP cameras on the back and 8MP selfie camera. All information about the configuration and price of the Galaxy Tab S8 series in Korea has been revealed Meanwhile, Tab S8 Ultra is equipped with an extremely large 14.6-inch screen. At the moment, there is no tablet model with such a large OLED screen and such a high refresh rate. In particular, Tab S8 Ultra has an impressive thickness of only 5.5mm and weighs 650g. It is equipped with a huge battery up to 12,000mAh, supports 45W fast charging, high-end processor, 8GB/12GB RAM and 128GB/512GB internal memory. The manufacturer will also launch a new high-end keyboard accessory for these tablets to support many different modes to increase flexibility during use. Galaxy Tab S8 series will be Apple iPad Pro’s rival in the high-end tablet segment Many rumors that Samsung will equip the latest processor chip for its new generation tablet line, but have not revealed specifics. However, with the Tab S7 series using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ chip, it is possible that the Tab S8 series will be equipped with the newly launched Qualcomm Snapdragon 888+ chip. Tab S8 series will rival Apple iPad Pro in the premium tablet segment. The plus point of the Tab S8 series compared to Apple’s products is that the S-Pen is sold with the device, instead of having to be purchased separately like Apple’s Pencil. The expected price according to some sources is from 740 USD, 1,120 USD and 1,320 USD respectively, about 17 million, 24 million and 30 million VND respectively. according to Phonearena

Samsung Galaxy S21 FE smartphone model. Photo: GSMArena.com South Korean electronics company Samsung Electronics Co. is quietly considering launching new smartphone models in August in an attempt to expand its leadership in the mobile market, industry sources reported May 9. Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone supplier, is in talks with local mobile service providers to launch new smartphone models including the Galaxy S21 FE, Galaxy Z Fold3 and Galaxy Z Flip2 in late August. If approved, these new smartphone models will be launched earlier than usual. Industry experts say the early launch of these new smartphone models aims to fill the void of the Galaxy Note phablet line that is launched every August. Samsung hasn’t confirmed any information regarding the upcoming smartphone models, but tech experts predict that the Galaxy Z Fold3 lineup is the first smartphone that can fold the screen with under-screen camera and S-Pen stylus support. Samsung was the world’s top smartphone vendor in the first quarter of 2021 after shipping 77 million smartphones, accounting for 23% of the market share, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics.

Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy S21 smartphone on display at a store in Seoul. Photo: Yonhap According to industry sources on May 9, Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone vendor, is in talks with local mobile service providers about launching new smartphone models. Galaxy S21 FE, Galaxy Z Fold3 and Galaxy Z Flip2 at the end of August. If approved, these new smartphone models will be released sooner than usual. Industry experts say the early launch of these new smartphone models is intended to fill the void of the Galaxy Note phablet line that is launched in August every year. Samsung has not confirmed any information regarding upcoming smartphone models, but technology experts predict that the Galaxy Z Fold3 lineup is the first smartphone to fold screens with camera below the screen and has support for S-Pen stylus. Samsung was the world’s leading smartphone supplier in the first quarter of 2021 after shipping 77 million smartphones, accounting for 23% of the market share, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics.