The reality hits ECB President Christine Lagarde sensitively before today’s Council meeting – because now the financial community is puzzling over when she and her crew will raise interest rates. The French had ruled out something like this for 2022, which was probably a mistake. The first are reminiscent of a basic political law: “Never say never.”
Just don’t make the same mistake as the US Federal Reserve and counteract it much too lateadvises the renowned US economist Mohamed El-Erian in an interview with the Handelsblatt: “The ECB must be careful not to maneuver itself into a dead end.” Specifically, the chief adviser to the Allianz Group criticizes that…
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- the Fed and the ECB believed in “temporary inflation” for too long: “After that, it’s difficult to break away from such a thesis in time.”
- the investors are irritated: “The expectation from the markets is that the Fed will make a mistake and stall the economy.”
- the US central bankers are in trouble: “The Fed has no choice, it has to fight inflation, even if it is to the detriment of the economy.”
- the ECB’s determinations are obsolete: “I don’t think it can avoid an interest rate hike this year, two rate hikes would also be possible.”
We learn from the old church teacher Augustine of Hippo: “He who does not let himself be conquered by the truth will be conquered by error.”
Thanks to a strangely extruded interview on ZDF, we know from Olaf Scholz that he will soon be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow: “The situation is serious.” Incidentally, the Chancellor assured the TV channel that nobody in the western camp doubted Germany. His dual strategy has been understood: on the one hand talk, on the other hand threaten tough sanctions in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In Scholz’s language, this means that it would “have a very high price” to endanger Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and integrity. In Moscow, scout Scholz will also have to explain the stop of the Russian foreign broadcaster RT in Germany. According to the ZAK Broadcasting Commission, the necessary media law approval is missing for this. RT has to shut down its television programming, with exported Putinism dwindling.
After the US giant Alphabet and its subsidiary Google set off fireworks on the stock exchange on Tuesday, the Facebook group Meta caused a living room fire on Wednesday with the latest financial figures. In after-hours trading, the stock fell by more than 20 percent at times, a result of problematic numbers. The number of active users fell slightly from 1.93 billion to 1.929 billion. All observers had also expected group sales (up a fifth to $33.7 billion) and profits (down eight percent to just under $10.3 billion) in the fourth quarter to be significantly brighter.
The figures of the Meta Group were below expectations. The founder offered a number of apologies for this, but was unable to prevent Meta’s shares from plummeting in the stock market.
(Photo: imago/IP3press)
Founder Mark Zuckerberg offered a number of excuses for this: more privacy, expensive investments, increasing competition. Overall, Meta turned over around $118 billion (up 37 percent) in 2021 and earned $39.4 billion (up 35 percent).
Conclusion: These are nice monopoly values, but Wall Street is a little spoiled.
What The Zuck forgot in its litany of new calamities are legal risks in the face of the slander rampant in the Facebook ecosystem. The Greens politician and former Federal Minister Renate Künast achieved great things before the Federal Constitutional Court on the day of the Facebook numbers. Meta has to release all usage data of those people who called them manure terms like “piece of shit”, “bitch”, “dirty cunt” or “dirty pig”.
Unlike the regional court and the higher court in Berlin, the constitutional judges held that politicians do not have to put up with everything. It cannot be expected that someone is committed to the state and society if they are not adequately protected. Künast had been violated in her personal rights. Some mills grind slowly, but they grind.
She no longer wants to leave all of her wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
(Photo: Reuters)
And then there’s multi-billionaire Melinda French Gates, who confirms the notion that post-divorce women in ultra-high-income households are strikingly positive. It was the same with MacKenzie Scott, who, detached from e-commerce king Jeff Bezos, stood out as a generous philanthropist. Bill Gates’ ex-wife also seems different: “I realize the absurdity of having so much wealth in one person’s hands. I think the only responsible thing you can do with a wealth of this magnitude is to give it away – as thoughtfully and effectively as possible & Melinda Gates Foundation, but also distributed to other foundations. In 2015 she founded Pivotal Ventures. She cares about progress for women and families.
George Bernard Shaw comments on the actions of the woman, who now emphasizes the “French” in the name: “It’s not difficult to find people who are ten times as rich at 60 than they were at 20. But not one of them claims to be ten times happier.”
With that in mind, I wish you a happy day.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
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