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"When CEOs announce price increases in the media, it's price coordination" - Walla! Money

2021-11-11T13:45:29.239Z


MK Alex Kushnir, chairman of the finance committee, discovered his Jewishness when he was at school, when he was called a "stinking Jew." To "Executive Summary", he says: "What connected me to the country was the assassination of Rabin"


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"When CEOs announce price increases in the media, it's price coordination"

He only discovered his Judaism when he received antisemitic curses.

He candidly tells about his childhood in Ukraine, about the ropes of absorption in Israel, about his service in the GSS and even what he learned from his predecessor in office, MK Gafni.

"Executive Summary" with MK Alex Kushnir, Chairman of the Finance Committee and one of the key people behind the budget transfer

Tags

  • Alex Kushnir

  • Finance Committee

  • Moshe Gafni

  • Dudi Amsalem

  • Shin Bet

Liat Ron

Wednesday, 10 November 2021, 17:37 Updated: Thursday, 11 November 2021, 15:35

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Name

: MK Alex Kushnir, Chairman of the Finance Committee.

43 years old.



Who I am

: Trying to be considerate and count to ten before I make decisions.



Roots

: Dad's family moved from Poland to Drohobych, Ukraine, a small Jewish town.

Grandpa had a telephone factory, the high-tech of that period, and Grandma ran a shop.


Grandpa, on Mom's side, was a combat engineering officer, fighting during the war against the Germans.

Grandmother, survived the siege of Leningrad, where her mother died of starvation, raising her younger brothers.



They met after the war and lived on the border between Russia and China, until Grandpa retired from the army and they moved to Krivoy Rog, a gray industrial city, with ironworks and chemical plants in Ukraine, where he received an apartment from the army.

Mom graduated from a dance college there and was accepted into the band in Drohobych - and there she met Dad, who was an oil engineer.



My girls

: I was born in Drohobych, an only child.

At the age of two we moved to Caribou Rog, living next to grandparents.

When I was eight my parents divorced.

They called me to the room and told me together and for me it was thunder on a clear day because there were no quarrels in the house.

Dad moved to Odessa and in 1989 emigrated with his new wife to the US. Since then he has been in San Francisco. We kept in touch.



Mom made a living teaching dance and barely made a living. I later found out that he had secretly collected newspaper clippings about Israel's victory over the six days and Yom Kippur.

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(Photo: Reuven Castro)

Zionism

: It was only in first grade that I discovered that I was Jewish. When the teacher read a list of the children with a name, last name and nationality, as was customary there, my nationality was Jewish. I was in the market and asked my mother what a Jew is. She and Grandpa told me about religion and Israel. I had a lot of non-Jewish friends, and when antisemitic revelations began and they called me "stinking Jew" and "Jew" I used my physical skills to eradicate her ...



Aliyah to Israel

: was very fast. I graduated in physics and mathematics in the eighth grade in May in Ukraine, and by September 1992 we were already on our way to Israel. There was then a war in Yugoslavia. When we arrived at the airport in Kiev, the airspace was closed, we were imprisoned there, unable to leave, for 24 hours and we arrived towards the beginning of Shabbat.



I remember the warm breeze inside upon landing in Israel and the hotel in Netanya where we stayed overnight, until we arrived in Ashkelon. Mom worked in cleaning and after a year and a half started teaching gymnastics and dance. I worked in a cannery, in a watermelon field and my best job was collecting garbage. I would get up early, do a two-hour shift and go to school.



Reset

: I was in ninth grade, with no language and no roots. There I was Jewish and here Russian. In Ukraine I was a good student and here I did not understand anything, only the curses. I was very athletic, I did Wrestling, Thai boxing, I played football, and a month after we got here I started working in trucking. At the end of my first year in the country I was informed at school that I was not continuing there. Mom and I begged to be given another chance and agreed to keep me in ninth grade.



It reset me.

I had an amazing teacher named Yaffa French, who responded and pushed me.

I completed a matriculation of 10 computer units, math, physics and English increased with good grades.

I wanted to be a physicist.

All my life I have been drawn to physics and to this day, when I run out of power for budgets I open a book or app and dive into this world and each time I am amazed at how people have managed to uncover the mechanisms behind things.

(Photo: Reuven Castro)

GSS:

I wanted to be a combatant and because I was an only child, I pressed my mother to sign an agreement and immigrated to Lebanon. This shaky event made me try to figure out where I really live.



I was accepted to study physics at the Technion and Hebrew, but because I had to work, I settled on economics and joined the Shin Bet as a field, first as a student and later an office unit in secret, while I did an MBA with specialization in finance Kiryat Ono.



Alona

: My wife works External Relations At BG University. After I finished a long relationship, I said to myself, why should I not try to meet online and when I saw her picture we started corresponding, we met, after three months we realized it was serious, and we got married after a year and a half. We live in Ashkelon and we have a daughter.



Career

: After eight years I left the service, and a month and a half later we found out we were pregnant. I started working for a defense export company and then I was offered to be VP of Operation of the "Golf" gas stations in Georgia.

We moved there with a six-month-old girl and stayed five years.

When the company was sold, I moved to be the JDC's representative in Belarus and in December 2014 we returned to Israel and joined Yisrael Beiteinu.

(Photo: Reuven Castro)

"My uncle Amsalem came just to interrupt"

Politics

: After 12 years in the defense establishment, in which you do something great for the country, and after the activities for the Jewish people at the JDC, I felt the need to work for others. I was in 17th place on Yisrael Beiteinu's list for the 20th Knesset and I did not enter. I worked at non-bank credit, and when Israel Beiteinu back the coalition, passed the classifications and accepted the position of Director General of the Ministry of Absorption Under Sofa Landver, then asked me to stand in parallel at the top "path."



I served as both a year - and Cslibrmn resigned from the Defense Ministry and the party out of the coalition, I stayed CEO without a minister, and Netanyahu was my direct boss and was not even aware of my existence. When rival Levin was appointed he fired me after three days, with no overlap and nothing, even though we were on budget. Anyway, six days later he left and Galant was appointed in his place. I ran in the elections on the list again, I have been in the Knesset for two years and chaired the subcommittee for lone soldiers.



Finance Committee

: I did not ask Lieberman for anything, it was just important to me that a government be formed.

This position has a responsibility for public money and monetary policy, which is why I'm all there.

During the budget transfer we had significant and substantive discussions, I tried to avoid yellow headlines and make the committee professional.



Among opposition members who came to work were some of the staff and contributed their experience to the process, even if they voted against and there were those, like Dudi Amsalem, who came to do provocations and shoot videos and after three minutes were taken out.

(Photo: Reuven Castro)

What I learned from MK Moshe Gafni

Gafni

: My predecessor in office. The way he functioned on the committee depended on his mood. When he was businesslike, he turned out to be full of knowledge, that there was something to listen to, a parliamentarian with many years of experience.



Harm to the ultra-Orthodox

: When the hearings end on the merits, the hearings begin on the person's body and there is a lot of racism and prejudice breaking out, and I try to put an end to it. I am in contact with elements in the ultra-Orthodox society who want to be a part and try to achieve things.



We transferred 1.17 billion to the students, who also have crocheted kippah wearers. It comes from the understanding that there are people who serve in the army and become senior officers, who go to study in a yeshiva and at the end of the service integrate into the employment market and deserve support.



Soldiers' salary increase

: We promised it would happen in 2023. I do not accept the campaign against us, as if we do not care about the regular soldiers, because the last time their salaries went up was when Lieberman was defense minister.


Chief of Staff grant: We did not add money, but turned a custom that was in the blink of an eye into something on the table, visible to everyone, so there will be no more games.



Coalition funds

: not ideal and it would be better if it was in the budget base. set in a government office, and members of the Knesset have no ability to influence the realization of money. sterilized cats received only six million per year and at the end it saves the environment.



I just remind Netanyahu gave to sterilize cats in the past five million and it did not bother anyone. Lets look at these funds as requirements coalition Like that of Yisrael Beiteinu, for the protection of the north and the south, or for raising the old-age pension.

(Photo: Reuven Castro)

"If you look at the financial statements of the companies that raise prices, with the profits and bonuses, it's outrageous."

Transfer of funds to Hamas

: Pike at the lowest level. The money does not go to the party or association, but to government offices and is supervised by the Accountant General and all other gatekeepers.



Rising prices

: To say it started because of the tax on sugary and disposable drinks, is demagoguery. The increase is due to a closed interface with barriers to imports and anti-competition, over-regulation and bureaucracy, and indeed, the excess cost to businesses is unbearable. Competition in the country is very limited and nothing has been done to increase it by the government. Nice to come to us with complaints after four months, but the budget has an opening for competition, lowering regulation and reforms aimed at lowering the cost of living.



We are in ninth place in the cost of living in the world.

This may sound absurd, but in Finland the grapes cost less than in Israel and the reason is concentration and a blocked market.

We will allow the economy to flourish, and after the reforms take effect, we will look at what is happening month by month.

The government and the Knesset have their tools to put pressure on businesses that raise prices.



Competition Authority investigation

: Since I have no details about the investigation, I can not comment on it, but do not have to be an investigator to understand that when CEOs announce price increases in the media, it is price coordination. An opinion that stated that a public statement is price coordination and for some reason it was shelved. If you look at the financial statements of the companies that raise prices, with the profits and bonuses, it is outrageous.

(Photo: Reuven Castro)

Hiking with the dog March

Leisure

: In the little time I have I walk with our dog, March, is with my wife, and spends the time with the girl, who sings and plays and learns with her.

Sometimes I'm also enough to read some books.



Foresight

: Unstable politics by its very nature.

I am here as long as I donate and there are voters who want me.

Wherever I am, I give my all.

It's currently on the Finance Committee and I'm not squinting anywhere else.



The full interview with MK Alex Kushnir will also be published in the "Business" issue of Maariv, Friday, November 12.

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Source: walla

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