the beginning of the week is dominated by the after-fold on Glasgow. On the one hand, there is the question of what the many days of the World Climate Conference have brought. On the other hand, there are dark premonitions of what could come again as an answer to the pandemic – ergo, what concrete solutions a vacuum can offer than many are currently experiencing German politics.
To start with COP26 in Scottish: It takes a lot of self-denial to sell the insistence on the 1.5-degree target as a success, since that target is currently as realistic as honoring Jair Bolsonaro as a forest conservationist. The decision to phase out coal, which was planned as “historical”, has been weakened by the language skills of the major consumer countries China and India: It is now called “phase-down” instead of “phase-out”.
It harms the climate “if the differences in ambition for climate protection even increase,” says BDI President Siegfried Russwurm. What was achieved in Glasgow “is not enough”. The industry is in agreement with the youth protest, except that the youngsters formulate it more sharply: The COP26 declaration is a “thundering call to people everywhere to take to the streets,” says Luisa Neubauer from Fridays for Future: “As long as the If there is no intervention, governments will continue to cheat. “
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In terms of Corona, on the other hand, Austria has advanced with a general 2G regulation, in fact, with a lockdown for the unvaccinated. If that does not help against the high number of infections by Wednesday, the Green Minister of Health Wolfgang Mückstein pleads for night curfews for all citizens after 10 p.m., including those who have been vaccinated. Freedom rights would be cashed in despite individual protection, everyone would understand: vaccination does not protect against it, it is not really worth it.
According to a number of media reports, the German federal government is thinking of stricter controls in the workplace: Employees would have to show their vaccination status or a negative corona test every day. In addition, employers should have a right to information. Finally, a 2G-Plus regulation should apply to events: Access only for vaccinated and convalescent people with an additional negative corona test. No wage claim without vaccination or test, employer President Rainer Dulger brings it up with this striking formula in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine”. The home office obligation, which Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) wants to reintroduce, does not help, however.
Helge Braun is still minister of the Chancellery, a position where he didn’t exactly attract attention with sparkling ideas. But now he is doing a good campaign with Corona issues on his way to the CDU chairmanship, gladly with fundamental criticism of the traffic light parties: “We have to achieve by Christmas that over 20 million booster vaccinations can be given. We are not yet equipped for this. ”
Conclusion: Braun’s career is based on the principle of the Roman politician Sallust: “Every person is the architect of his own future.”
We live in times of the liquidity trap, just as described by old master John Maynard Keynes: the prices are so high and the interest rates so low that many expect prices to fall and interest rates to rise. German companies are currently hoarding as much liquidity as never before with a whopping 688 billion euros, reports our cover story with reference to a data analysis by the business law firm Freshfields.
Inflation and penalty interest burden this cash wealth, which in turn increases the pressure to invest the large amount of liquid funds after all – for example in mergers and acquisitions. The monopoly that has been observed for some time is getting new nourishment. As Jens Maurer, chief investment banker at Morgan Stanley puts it: “Inefficient” balance sheets are always a gateway for activist investors.
The former US President’s Trump organization actually managed to sell the rights to the loss-making Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC for $ 375 million. During Donald Trump’s tenure, lobbyists around the world stayed in the US government building for obvious reasons. The hotel has now been taken over by the Miami-based investment firm CGI Merchant Group. And as one of the first official acts, it wants to remove the Trump signature from the hotel, which is located near the White House. CGI has apparently won the Hilton Group as a partner – who would like to turn it into an object of the Waldorf-Astoria chain.
When it comes to Wirecard, the largest Pinocchio event in the history of the Dax, insolvency administrator Michael Jaffé was already in a state of anger-induced willingness to fight in May. The EY auditors and their lawyers had “refused to participate in the investigation,” he said indignantly. Hobby boxer Jaffé is now going into hand-to-hand combat against the EY company, which had audited Wirecard’s balance sheets year in and year out. A claim for damages is in preparation. Auditor Martin Jonas von Warth & Klein Grant Thornton takes care of that.
The liability limit towards the client is limited to 16 million euros (previously four million), but it could also be immoral damage to investors and creditors – and direct or indirect intent.
“If auditors knew that the balance sheet was wrong and they still give a certificate, they have to be held indefinitely.”
And then there is Wolfgang Joop, 76, a veteran of the fashion industry, to which the “Spiegel” donated three pages of interviews, which were filled with borders of nonsense and tassels of triviality. Regretful of the past, oh so wonderfully frivolous world of Karl Lagerfeld, the man from Potsdam gallops into very sloping terrain.
“Everything was for sale. The agencies gave the keys to the rooms of the models, who did not bring that much money, to rich men. And when a girl complained, it was said: We can do without you too. ”Perhaps Joop is applying with his prostitution chats as a key witness for current investigations, for example around Gérald Marie, 71, ex-European head of the Paris model agency Elite. The American Carré Otis publicly stated that as a 17-year-old she had been raped several times by him, which Marie denies. Or maybe Joop just wanted to make himself interesting again.
I wish you a good start to the week with a well-deserved amount of attention.
I warmly greet you
you
Hans-Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
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