It really bugs me! Despite wars and global recession, Israel’s GDP – the size of an economy – practically doubled in a decade to 2014. And today? According to stats released by the Central Bureau of Statistics “Israel’s economy expanded at an annualized pace of 2.2% for the final six months of 2015. This is the lowest six-month growth figure in Israel since the first half of 2009, when the world was in the throes of the global financial crisis….” .

What is worse is that you get the feeling that the government just does not understand. And as I mentioned earlier this week, the main economic impetus of Prime Minister Netanyahu currently is to create a casino for tourists in Eilat, a plan deeply opposed in Parliament.

There are warning signs everywhere that the economy is slowing down.

• While the economy did grow by 3.3% in the last quarter of 2015, the surge was primarily led by higher consumer spending. Fine, but this is not what expansion should be based around.
• Since June 2015, there has been a steady monthly decline in the growth of the number of new job vacancies. In fact, the number has fallen in numeric terms since November.
• Government support for high-tech? Yet again, it seems the big companies are benefitting the most, while innovation is often found amongst the start ups.

Possibly the most significant sign of imbalance came with the headline: “Negative inflation is gaining momentum, but home prices rise 8%” (in January). That is one heck of an economic anomaly.

And the response from central government? Well, none frankly. Meanwhile, due to coalition politics, I believe the Prime Minister still holds about six portfolios. I suppose he is too busy with other important issues to have time to care what is or is not entering the pockets of his public.