The US Department of Justice sues Apple for their monopoly
dominance with their IPhones, The Bank of Japan will raise interest rates for the first time in 17 years, how has the Japanese economy responded to this news? And there is expected to be three interest rate cuts for the remainder of
2024 in the United States.
The Department of Justice has sued Apple sharing that their IPhone ecosystem caused high valuation at the
cost of users, developers and competitors. The government is still considering breaking up the company as the Department of Justice said there will be some
structural relief if the US were to win. The lawsuit claimed that Apple’s anti-competitive behaviour went far beyond IPhones and Apple watches. It went even within the
advertising, FaceTime and news offerings by Apple.
The Justice of Department shared that for Apple to keep consumers purchasing the IPhones, had moved to block cross-platform messaging app, limited third party wallet and smart watch compatibility. A spokesperson shared that complying with these regulations will cause the company money, can potentially hinder product
development and improvements in technology and also affect their customer demand as it stands. The lawsuit filed also will see the DOJ focusing on Smartwatches.
Users who purchase an Apple Watch will see
themselves with an increase in costs if they do not continue to purchase IPhones, as the technology is designed and set up in such a way that without an IPhone,
one does not get the most out of the Smartwatch.
The Bank of Japan has decided after 17 years that it is finally time has come to raise interest rates for the nation. Japan, the last nation on the planet to have negative interest rates has finally decided that the time is come to change how the economy has been operating. A company generally has negative interest rates when they want persons within to spend. This is because negative interest
rates means that they would be paying the banks to keep their money and so it was a way for the government to boost consumer spending. Expectations that Japan would raise interest rates started circulating after governor Kazuo Ueda went in office last April. Official reports suggested that even though the Japanese economy has been slowing, core inflation remained at the 2% target by the BOJ. The decision that led to Japan raising interest rates were increase in wages to help workers cope with
The United States economy is expected to see 3 interest rate cuts for the remainder of 2024. Federal Chair Jerome Powell shared that the recent high pressures has not changed the plans for the Fed to start slowly lowering price pressures as the central bank has 3 more rate cuts
while ensuring economic growth. The Fed has also left interest rates unchanged and released new data showing that the economy is expected to grow by 2.1%. The Fed also plans to continue implementing it’s “soft landing” from their post pandemic 40 year high experience, though documents has shown that officials need to pay keep
attention to price pressures to ensure it eases. A press conference shared by Powell was that the Fed will continue their fight to get inflation down no matter how much resilience and fight is put up by it. If inflation doesn’t go down as desired, then interest rates will be held high for as long as needed.
Have any questions, queries or concerns regarding what was spoken today, get in touch with us via email:
