the Republic is discussing two interviews with Finance Minister Christian Lindner. In the “Augsburger Allgemeine” the FDP boss addressed his resistance to a nine-euro ticket beyond August. According to Lindner, he is not convinced of a “free mentality à la unconditional basic income” in local public transport. Nikolaus Blome on n-tv is already drawing a parallel to the deceased party leader Guido Westerwelle, who coined the smear of “late Roman decadence” around the Hartz IV reference limits.
In the Handelsblatt, on the other hand, Lindner had confirmed that the “cold progression” in income tax would be reduced, while on the other hand leaving the basic parameters of the “tax on the wealthy” untouched (45 percent with an annual income of 278,000 euros). With templates like this, it’s easy to wrestle Greco-Roman.
Although the SPD and Greens react slightly irritated to these issues, FDP General Secretary Bjan Djir-Sarai gives us slogans to continue: “I think black-yellow or red-green could not have implemented the turning point.” Maybe, but somehow it crunches with three factions (“traffic lights”) more often than with only two parties.
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Before judges decide on a sentence, they must first assess how sincerely a defendant is about their remorse and confession. With Hanno Berger, 71, alleged spiritus rector behind the Cum-Ex tax rip-offs, you can also roll the dice or lay tarot cards to assess this question. In view of the alleged tax evasion, the shrewd tax lawyer cited “overloading”, the evil of our time. He had 30 lawyers and consultants under him, probably “overeat” and no longer looked so closely: “That was probably a mistake.” Some call the confession, the other partial confession.
What remains is the story told in the courtroom of a gifted man whose father, a pastor, woke him up at six in the morning, gave him a cold shower and asked him Latin vocabulary. Incidentally, Oscar Wilde always believed that “hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do”.
Black painting seems to have become the favorite artistic activity in business. Because if we understand this correctly, the lights can go out here in winter, just as if the Germans weren’t capable of saving, being creative, or being efficient. The automotive suppliers are also only perceived in the darkest colors, the bankruptcy vulture seemed to have settled on the paint shop.
And now, lo and behold: It’s just not true. The most recent semi-annual reports show that hardly any supplier corrected the forecast figures downwards. On the contrary: Continental publishes even earlier because profits are bubbling up. And rival ZF from Lake Constance is even aiming for record sales of more than 40 billion euros for the first time in 2022. Frank Göller from the management consultancy Horváth says: “The pessimism in the supplier industry is not justified.”
Or, as Mark Twain so beautifully put it, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”
During this wake-up service, we recently reported in detail on the fallen ARD boss and RBB director Patricia Schlesinger. The latest development sweeps even more rubbish in front of the public broadcaster’s house: The public prosecutor’s office has initiated investigations against Schlesinger, her husband, the ex-“Spiegel” journalist Gerhard Spörl, and against RBB administration chief Wolf-Dieter Wolf, a Berlin entrepreneur figure.
(Photo: IMAGO/Michael Handelmann)
The prosecutors see an initial suspicion – it’s about allegations of nepotism, the suspicion of infidelity and the acceptance of benefits. The most recent revelations in the media show that two bottles of champagne have already been drunk in small groups at the dinner events sponsored by the broadcaster. After yesterday’s Broadcasting Council meeting, Chairwoman Friederike von Kirchbach reported: “This is a crisis and you don’t go through crises unscathed.”
She was a symbol of joie de vivre and light-heartedness in the late 1970s, an icon of the cheerful, who as Sandy in 1978 in the musical “Grease” at John Travolta’s side conveyed a dose of petticoat eroticism that was just about allowed in the USA. Olivia Newton-John was a woman who liked to believe the globally chanted message “You’re The One That I Want”. There was the granddaughter of the German physics Nobel Prize winner Max Born, who was born in Cambridge, England, and who later briefly emigrated to Australia with her family, on the plateau of her success.
1981 was followed by her hit album Physical, which deals with the impossibility of connecting more closely with overweight men (and they seem to be everywhere). From 1992 onwards, she made headlines as a breast cancer fighter – a battle she later lost. Star next door Olivia Newton-John died Monday at her family ranch in Southern California at the age of 73.
And then there is Japanese investor legend Masayoshi Son with his Softbank Group, which experienced a record loss of the equivalent of 23 billion euros in the first part of the financial year as a truly historical disgrace. He feels like the later shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa after the lost battle of Mikatagahara in 1573, Son explained. He only listened to his ego and not to his allies. That was a warning to him.
While the man, who turns 65 this week, can’t be blamed for the weakness in the yen and tech stocks, Son says he’s ashamed of how he used to rev up after super wins. As before, the investor relies on start-ups in the fields of artificial intelligence and the Internet.
His hope: that among the 470 companies with Son’s capital there might be one like the online department store Alibaba. In two decades, it turned 20 million into around 50 billion dollars. Then there’s something else to come with the comeback of the Softbank guru to become the shogun of Internet capitalism. For now, let’s stick to Tokugawa’s Slowlife motto: “Life is like a long journey, begun with a heavy burden.”
I wish you a peaceful short journey through the day.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
PS: Transport Minister Volker Wissing is thinking about that 9 euro ticket continue in a similar way. What do you think: What should a follow-up ticket look like? What is your experience with the ticket – did you use it at all? Write us your opinion in five sentences [email protected]. We will publish selected articles with attribution on Thursday in print and online.