Here’s How to Kill Electrified Cars

The stories that shaped the week, and the big ideas behind them.

Five Things We Learned This Week

1) The Tesla Killer Isn’t What You Think It Is

The electrical car seems to be on an unstoppable trajectory. In the past five years, the number of electrified cars on the road worldwide has soared to two million from basically nothing, the International Energy Agency said this week. But one nation is showcasing there’s a way to halt their popularity: Stop paying people to buy one. Electric-car sales in Denmark fell more than sixty percent in the very first quarter after the government announced that tax violates would be phased out. Tesla’s Elon Musk had traveled to Copenhagen and lobbied against the cuts, and now the Danish government has extended the tax violates but still intends to reduce or eliminate various incentives. The phase-out plan “totally killed the market,” said Laerke Flader, head of the Danish Electrical Car Alliance. “Price truly matters.” 

Two) Trump Keeps Gargling His Own Deadlines

Bloomberg’s Toluse Olorunnipa has noticed something peculiar. In President Donald Trump’s world, everything is about to happen in two or three weeks. “The president has used two-week timelines to sidestep questions from reporters or brag to CEOs at the White House,” Olorunnipa wrote. “But his pronouncements have also flummoxed investors, Congress and at times even members of his staff.” A few examples:

Feb. 9: Trump says his tax overhaul plan will be announced in “the next two or three weeks.” A one-page outline was published eleven weeks later.

March 15: Trump tells Fox News’s Tucker Carlson that “some very interesting items” will come out “over the next two weeks” to support his claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower, but no evidence has come out.

“You can’t con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole,” Trump wrote in his one thousand nine hundred eighty seven book, “The Art of the Deal.” “But if you don’t produce the goods, people will eventually catch on.”

Three) Summer Jobs Are Dying

The summer teenage workforce has cratered. Are kids these days just lazy? Prioritizing “practices” that will sparkle on college applications? Contesting for jobs with more older Americans or immigrants? In the summers of the late ’80s, almost seventy percent of 16- to 19-year-olds were in the workforce, meaning they either had a job or were looking for one. Last July, that figure was down to forty three percent—Ten points lower than it was just ten years ago. If teenagers want them, the jobs are there. More employers are hiring this summer: forty one percent, up from twenty nine percent last year, according to a CareerBuilder survey. They could just be stuck in summer school, Ben Steverman reports. More than 40% of 16- to 19-year-olds these days go to school in July, up from about 30% in two thousand one and about 15% in 1993, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Four) You Still Can’t Trust Your Financial Adviser

If you have any of the following in your portfolio, you might want to reconsider your choice in financial adviser: variable annuities, high-fee mutual funds, and non-traded real estate investment trusts, or REITs. Those products often have high fees and don’t perform as well as other investments. That’s one of the reasons the Obama administration created a rule to restrict advisers’ behavior. In some cases, financial advisers can make higher commissions on products that aren’t as good for their clients. Conflicts of interests cost Americans $17 billion a year, or about one percent of some $1.7 trillion in retirement funds managed by financial advisers, the Obama administration estimated. After being delayed by the Trump administration, parts of the Fiduciary Rule will go into effect Friday. The rule requires advisers to demonstrate clients the best available products while clearly disclosing fees, which must be reasonable. 

Five) This Is the Future of Business-Class Seats

Picture this: You’re sitting in a cozy meeting room with three business playmates, served elaborate meals created by celebrity chefs. But you’re on a plane. This is the next evolution of business class, a term coined by Qantas in the late 1970s. Privacy screens or doors are going to be thick. If that’s not enough, airlines are suggesting the standard lie-flat seats, as well as spa products, 24-inch entertainment systems, personalized lighting and climate,  and power amenities designed to tuck straps out of view. Business class is actually substituting very first class on many planes, Bloomberg’s Eric Rosen reports.

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