the u.s. economy growing apace at an annual rate of three point five percent the boom being driven partly by tax cuts but is it just a flash in the pan. brazil chooses a new president on sunday will inherit a struggling economy that may no longer be able to support the average retirement age of fifty five. and after years of protests against gentrification demonstrators pushed google out of berlin. i'm stephen beardsley in berlin thanks for joining us the u.s. economy beat expectations in the third quarter on the back of the strongest consumer spending in nearly four years the commerce department said gross domestic product the total values of goods and services produced increased by three and a half percent from a year earlier the sharp rise in spending help offset a big drop in trade companies spent more to increase their inventories which also

helps all sort of growth analysts are expecting the economy to expand by around three percent this year and we're joined now by our financial correspondent in new york korda yens another quarter of solid growth in the u.s. donald trump is looking like the business friendly president that he advertise themselves to be. you know if we look at the entire year if we're really going to read a good three percent of growth we haven't seen anything like that since two thousand and five so in thirteen years i mean first of all we shouldn't forget that us president inherited a pretty decent economy the economic recovery was already underway for six seven years before. took office what does help is there to be almost a full employment in the united states so the labor market looks pretty solid and then on top of it earlier this year donald trump and this administration fired this

huge tax cuts and that was another incentive for the u.s. economy. good point yes the tax cut being credited with a lot of this growth but at the same time there must be a limit to what it can accomplish what are you hearing there. well i mean one of the problems is when you look at the u.s. corporations for example the tax cuts for companies got cut from thirty five to twenty one percent the big question is what those corporations are doing with that money and a lot of this money was not spend for investments but for higher dividends for mergers and acquisitions for huge buybacks of their own share so that was good for wall street that was good for investors but not necessarily for the entire country and what we also shouldn't forget is well this money is missing in washington sold takes guts means that debt in the united states it's increasing if i'm not mistaken

just in the last year. the u.s. government had to pay about six hundred billion dollars just for interest on their debts that could actually be a problem if we're looking ahead to the future that that is increasing quite a bit so a double edged sword with these tax cuts are there for us in new york against thank you staying in the u.s. the f.b.i. is reportedly examining whether american carmaker tesla misstated information about the production of its model three sedans and its business going back to early last year that's according to the wall street journal in july two thousand and seventeen tesla c.e.o. elon musk tweeted that he was expected he expected to be producing twenty thousand model threes a month by december but the carmaker produce just twenty seven hundred for the entire year last month the u.s. securities and exchange commission settled separate civil charges with tesla and moss for misleading investors. as brazil prepares for

a weekend runoff vote its economy is widely viewed as a disaster one problem is the pension system one of the most generous retirement programs in the world brazil can't afford it now and it's about to get worse. harm's already gave us this report. rush hour in sao paolo in brazil's biggest city many people work far more than eight hours per day some start at a very early age so they can retire at fifty five and then continue to earn seventy percent of their final salary for the rest of their lives for decades that's been the norm in brazil. it's what says that was hoping for after working as a teacher for more than thirty years an accident before retirement led to her salary being cut now the sixty three year old gets less than the minimum wage and now i have no money no it's inhumane to have to live on

a minimum salary everything is getting more expensive with inflation and all that and people keep on getting a salary which now i can live on so it's very difficult. with less than two hundred dollars a month she can barely afford more than her rent and although she bolsters her income by selling handicrafts she feels desperate about the future. they all know they only they have no idea what to do i have faith in god that he will open up doors for me but i really don't know if it's mary. now they have they. moved into this. says that situation is not an isolated case poor and middle class retirees especially from the private sector are finding it harder and harder to survive on their pensions so they keep on working sometimes for decades after retiring. well somebody thinks i paid in more than

twenty times the minimum wage and so did my company and i did that for ten fifteen years then they reduced it to a contribution on ten minimum salaries that was so in a nutshell i ended up retiring with only one times the minimum wage. and life expectancy is increasing in the country it's a demographic change that's leading to fewer younger workers supporting more retirees in addition to the recent years of limited or negative growth and the very generous pensions granted to the public employees residents rapidly heading to a point where it was no longer be able to meet its pension obligations. in twenty seventeen the government ran up a deficit of more than sixty billion dollars in order to cover pensions despite this unsustainability an overhaul of the pension system is politically difficult to achieve. usually they go in and.

remembers the problem only when there is no crash of a loved one. and not because you need to have a good system in order to people feel more secure and more comfortable we've seen they were in season. and so all the time that they kept the reform always seen these things of cutting spending not improve by the in a better therapy. the issue of pension reform is complex and controversial and neither of the presidential candidates facing off in this sunday's election runoff have clearly addressed it however it's one of the most urgent challenges the newly elected congress will face in twenty nineteen. brazil's pensioners will no doubt be pleased to hear that the world's billionaires became twenty percent richer in twenty seventeen and the report by swiss bank u.b.s. and auditor pricewaterhouse coopers says there are more of them than ever before

more than two thousand fact together they are worth up to eight point nine trillion dollars the u.s. still has the greatest concentration of wealth held by billionaires but china is missing them faster with two new billionaires every week according to the report. a booming startup scene is facing off with anger over rising rents in berlin just look at google the u.s. tech firm had planned a multi-million dollar campus for startups in the city before protesters forced it into a rethink. this construction site was scheduled to be open for berlin fast growing startups on may twenty ninth teen the tech giant had wanted to give the scene a man. of boost with google campus three thousand square metres at a cost of fourteen million euros the company's change of plans came as a huge surprise if you. feel we certainly learned something from the many conversations we had this is actually the wrong place for pure startup campus and

what we are aware for protest but we don't allow them to dictate our actions from and wish them to form which s.t.t. and thus. however it certainly looks as if google threw in the tao since it unveiled the project two years ago there have been frequent protests local residents fear the campus with speed up the pace of gentrification in september activists occupied the construction site now the building is home to social projects google is still paying the bills but it's donated the office space to the better place internet platform as well as karuna a charity that helps children and teens in need. we would have liked google to move in because we benefit greatly when organizations and businesses cooperate on social cooperatives like ours help connect young people from the streets and enterprises and we cannot do it alone we have to cooperate. with.

the business friendly free democrats so the failure of the google campus is a disastrous signal for berlin as an investment location. it sends the wrong message to the world that companies are not welcome here so there will be no new jobs which we urgently need in the capital. activists disagree and call it a victory for their neighborhood. it's terrific that the company's reputation has been tarnished we hope the message spreads to other companies thinking about coming here to invest and create start up pops a local population doesn't benefit at all. google has promised to pay for the lease and utilities for the next five years so the controversial start could eventually end up boosting the tech giants image. and that's your business report you can find

more line at. dot com i'm stephen beard thanks for joining us. now to. cut cut cut cut. cut cut. cut. cut cut. cut. cut cut cut cut cut. cut. cut cut. cut cut.

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