Good morning, dear readers,
clear communication is not considered a strong point of US President Joe Biden. On Monday, he managed to sow confusion again: “I intend to run, Al, but we’re not ready to announce it yet,” Biden said in response to an interview question from NBC television reporter Al Roker.
So Joe Biden is announcing that he wants to run for a second term, but he’s not ready to announce it yet. It’s okay, Joe, we understand you that way too. The 80-year-old probably meant that the official announcement is still a long time coming.
(Photo: AP)
In view of his advanced age, even within Biden’s own party, there are considerable reservations about a second term for him. But there is no convincing inner-party alternative. If Biden takes office, the role of candidate for the Democrats could hardly be taken away from him.
If you used the Easter days to unplug from the stream of news, here are a few events that you may have missed:
So much for the short Easter review. A Handelsblatt research is pointing more towards the future, the result of which is not surprising on the one hand – it is simply the laws of supply and demand at work – but on the other hand it is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the growth prospects in Germany.
The rising interest rates mean that German companies are trying to reduce their debt and cut back on their investments. Only six of the 32 Dax companies outside the financial sector increased their debt levels in 2022. The rest of the corporations often tried to get repayments. As a result, almost half of the companies cut their net investments compared to the previous year. Peter Barkow from the analysis company Barkow Consulting: “The financing costs for companies through loans have tripled compared to 2022.”
According to Handelsblatt research, the interest rates that have been due on loans or bonds since then have risen much faster than the base rate for most companies. The latest bond issued by IHO, the holding company of automotive supplier Schaeffler, shows how tense the situation is. On March 24, the Franconian family company placed 500 million euros with institutional investors. The interest rate of 8.75 percent is more than twice as high as for the previous bonds.
Research by colleagues from the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” worried me: more than a year after the start of the Ukraine war and the first Western sanctions package the EU still has no overview of which banks hold the frozen assets of the Russian central bank in the EU.
This is all the more remarkable since EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) announced last November that the blocked “reserves of the Russian central bank worth 300 billion euros” are to be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
According to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the number is only an estimate by a working group. 200 billion of them are said to be on accounts or in bank vaults in the EU, the rest in the other G7 countries, everything else: unclear.
What is certain, however, is that a country destroyed by war has never been rebuilt with hot air alone.
And then there is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who enriches military history with a curiosity: the aircraft carrier without aircraft. According to the Reuters news agency, Turkey presented the 232-meter-long “Anadolu” on Monday under Erdogan’s proud eyes. The Turkish Navy originally wanted to use US F-35B fighter jets, which can take off from short runways, on its first aircraft carrier. But the US excluded Turkey from its F-35 program. For the time being, helicopters and drones in particular are to be stationed on the “Anadolu”.
Sure, that hurts, but maybe a lesson can be learned from the superyacht sector: In order to function as a floating ego prop, a ship has to be one thing alone – big.
I wish you a day when you really take off.
Best regards
Your Christian Rickens
Editor-in-Chief Handelsblatt
