TNT:

Tishwash: Demonstration in front of the Central Bank of Iraq in central Baghdad

Dozens demonstrated, on Wednesday, in front of the Central Bank of Iraq in the center of the capital, Baghdad, to demand the release of stalled housing loans and financial allocations for housing.

One of the demonstrators told Shafaq News agency, "Today we are demonstrating in front of the Central Bank on Al-Rasheed Street, calling on the government and the Central Bank to release financial allocations to the Real Estate Bank after it stopped lending to citizens for the purpose of building and buying housing units," calling for the need to "reactivate and launch loans for this bank and other banks according to Soft instructions.

He added, "Many government banks shirk their responsibilities in launching instructions for housing loans and construction and renovation loans," calling on "the Central Bank to launch its initiative, which includes one trillion to support housing loans on the ground."

A number of government banks, especially Al-Rafidian and Al-Rasheed Banks, are competing to grant various and many loans according to mechanisms and instructions that may sometimes be strict, while some citizens suffer from difficulty in obtaining these loans compared to countries in the world, which are often directed towards optimal investment for them.

The Central Bank had allocated 6 trillion since 2015 to launch two initiatives for housing loans. The first initiative, five trillion, went to the sectoral banks, which are industrial, agricultural, real estate, and the housing fund, and the one trillion initiative went to private banks. link

CandyKisses: Iraq announces full payment of Iranian debts

Baghdad - Iraq Today:

The Ministry of Electricity announced the payment of Iraq's debts to all Iran, indicating that the delay in paying these debts is caused by US sanctions on Iran.

Ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Abadi said in a statement to the media that "the ministry has paid all the dues of imported Iranian gas in a special account with the Iraqi Trade Bank," noting that the latter "faces difficulties in delivering those funds to the Iranian side due to US sanctions."

He added that "the delay in the arrival of financial dues to the Iranian side prompted the latter to reduce the quantities of gas exported to Iraq, as it reached 15 million cubic meters per day, which affected the processing hours for citizens," noting that "government and diplomatic efforts contributed to the return of gas releases to normal, which contributed to the stability of processing hours."

"The ministry is working on installing complex cycles, establishing thermal plants, installing stations that run on associated gas, and initiating solar energy projects as well as electrical interconnection projects," he said.

"The Ministry of Oil is working to accelerate the pace of associated gas investment in the fields, and we, in turn, are working on strategic partnerships with international companies to install gas-fired stations in the field," al-Abadi said.

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Harambe: Americans Say They Need $2.2 Million to Be Considered Wealthy | Bloomberg (6/13/23)

Wealth isn’t an easily defined concept, and you can’t determine just one dollar amount that makes someone wealthy. But if you could, Americans have collectively chosen $2.2 million as that sum.

Charles Schwab asked a nationally representative sample of Americans to estimate the average net worth that would allow someone to be called “rich,” and that’s the amount they settled on, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. That finding is just one of many in the financial-services company’s 2023 Modern Wealth Survey, which polled people on their perceptions of wealth.

“There’s this paradox of people defining wealth differently for themselves versus others,” Rob Williams, the company’s managing director of financial planning and wealth management, told Bloomberg. “When you ask someone for a dollar amount, they don’t put it in the context of the rest of their life and financial health.”

That’s evident in the fact that despite the $2.2 million wealth threshold, 48 percent of survey respondents said they already feel wealthy, with an average net worth of just $560,000. And that feeling was more abundant with Millennials and Gen Zers (57 percent and 46 percent, respectively) than with Gen Xers and Baby Boomers (41 percent and 40 percent, respectively).

Elsewhere, 47 percent of people said that being able to afford a similar lifestyle to their friends made them feel wealthy. That split along the same generational lines: 61 percent of both Gen Zers and Millennials agreed with that statement, while just 39 percent of Gen Xers and 31 percent of Boomers agreed. And more than one-third of social-media users said those comparisons happen online, as they keep an eye on what their friends and family post.

While wealth is largely associated with dollar amounts, the participants in the Charles Schwab survey also had a broader, more intangible perception of being rich. Rather than having a lot of money in your checking and savings accounts, 70 percent of people said that wealth was more about not worrying about money. And almost two-thirds said that having healthy relationships with their loved ones described wealth better than having a fat wallet.

Maybe that old saying about money not being able to buy you happiness is true after all.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-13/how-much-money-do-you-need-to-be-rich-more-than-2-million-a-new-survey-finds

Mot: .. Wellll it is Breakfast Time!!!