when it comes to the lack of raw materials, we recently talked about the “old economy”, about oil and gas and coal. But they should be eliminated in the climate fight by 2050 anyway. And that draws attention to all the resources that should enable the brave new world of electromobility without a smelly exhaust. Our cover story tells the devastating result: Here, too, there is a lack of critical raw materials everywhere, prices are shooting up like a Space X rocket.
The battery cells currently lack the nickel from Russian mines, which has cost five times as much since the attack on Ukraine. Cobalt, lithium and copper have also become massively more expensive.
So it is that VW, together with two Chinese partners, sets out to exploit nickel deposits in Indonesia. The “old economy” has the Russian cluster risk, the dependency on Gazprom & Co. The “new economy” has – to a completely different extent – the Chinese cluster risk.
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Germany has been discussing for weeks whether we can afford an energy embargo against the Russia of the warmonger Putin. Daily payments of 200 million euros to the Putin system morally discredit our country. But what about the economic effects? Professors Moritz Schularick and Achim Wambach argue about this in an interview with the Handelsblatt.
- Using his own study as a basis, Schularick pleads for an immediate stop in deliveries of oil, gas and coal: According to this, German economic output would be three percent lower in 2022, a loss of 120 billion euros. tolerable. Contrary to what the lobby of the energy companies and the frightened Greens claim, the lights did not go out.
- Put on thicker socks, insulate the leaky cellar door, replace the gas heater – for Schularick there are many ways to save energy on a small scale. The country also survived the corona shock well, but in the meantime there is a lot of “gut feeling economics”: “Politicians are asking the same associations and companies that have told us in the past ten years that energy dependence on Russia is not a problem at all. “
- Achim Wambach counters that the study calculates without unemployment and without inflation. Above all, it is not taken into account that Russian gas is not so easy to replace. There would also be significant political-economic effects, see “yellow vests” in France. The financial markets would also be affected.
- Wambach explains that he would have understood the sanction of the embargo before the outbreak of war in order to prevent it. Now, however, this doesn’t make sense: “So if Putin knows that he won’t be able to sell energy to us in six months, why should he change his behavior if he can’t do it now?”
One can agree on Hemingway: “The world is so beautiful and worth fighting for.”
The federal government currently seems to have a boss and two deputies. One of them, the declared Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck, is increasingly busy with the search for oil drums and fending off proposals that the undeclared Vice-Chancellor Christian Lindner is making on his own account. That’s how it was with the FDP boss’s tank discount, which the ex-Greens boss badmouthed as “well intentioned”: “I don’t think the argument was completely finished.”
(Photo: imago images/photothek)
That’s how it is now with Lindner’s proposal that Europe should talk to the US again about the TTIP trade agreement. Habeck murmurs that an “ideological debate” blocks the way for a “cooperative understanding that we are currently building”.
In France, the ministries for economics and finance are united, in Germany this already existed: in 1971 and 1972, first with Karl Schiller, then with Helmut Schmidt. Actually not a bad idea.
For years, Facebook boasted of promoting the 2011 “Arab Spring”. The demonstrators made an appointment with the data service. But in Myanmar, radical agitators raged on Facebook with their hatred of the Muslim Rohingya minority until there were murders, arson attacks and mass rapes.
Russia now classifies Facebook and its Instagram platform as a weapon of the communication age – they have been banned. Reason: “extremist activities” of the networks belonging to Meta Platforms.
A representative of the Russian domestic secret service FSB: “The activities of the Meta organization are directed against Russia and its armed forces.” WhatsApp, also belonging to the US group Meta, was not affected by Putin’s purge.
It has been almost two years since Richard Grenell said goodbye as US Ambassador to Berlin. Donald Trump’s “loudspeaker” attracted attention through close networking and undiplomatic bullying.
Shortly before US President Joe Biden’s visit to Europe, his successor Amy Gutmann praised the close cooperation with Germany in the Ukraine crisis: “There is a very high level of trust.”
The Federal Republic has taken responsibility in the Ukraine crisis and should continue to do so. Gutmann declared: “If Germany does not take the leading role in the EU, we will all be weaker together.”
There was special praise for the decision not to inaugurate Gazprom’s Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline. Gutmann’s good advice, which has been heard many times before: “In every crisis there is an opportunity.”
And then there is Peter Feldmann (SPD), Mayor of Frankfurt, who has to fight for office. According to a report by Hessischer Rundfunk, the public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt has filed charges against the politician for taking advantage in connection with the AWO affair.
It is about the suspicion that Feldmann used his influence in 2015 to get his partner at the time and later wife ZübeydeFeldmann a job as head of a daycare center for workers’ welfare (AWO), including a company car and with a proud salary.
Feldmann explained that a procedure would give him the chance to clear the excessive suspicions. The investigations had “revealed nothing but one-sided conjectures”. A neutral body will soon decide on the accusations that have been made out of thin air. He won’t hide.
This time the short final comment comes from the Italian writer Luigi Pirandello: “It is easier to be a hero than a man of honour. You only have to be a hero once, a man of honor always.”
I wish you a good start into the day.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs