In the fight against high petrol prices, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) rejects a reduction in VAT or mineral oil tax. That would automatically make the state a co-beneficiary of the Ukraine crisis, which is causing the rising commodity prices. According to “Bild” information, the 43-year-old now came up with another trick, to push the petrol price below two euros. A “tank discount” for car and truck drivers should bring relief. The model: At the cash register, a discount of at least 20 cents per liter is deducted from the customer’s bill. Anyone who fills up 40 liters for 80 euros saves eight euros. The gas station attendant is to submit the receipt to the Ministry of Finance later.
According to our information, the federal government’s list of measures also includes the installation of a “protective shield against Russia”: it pays out companies for damage suffered or grants direct aid. After Uniper, the energy company VNG, a subsidiary of the EnBW group, is also applying for a loan worth billions from the state-owned KfW banking group – this is the only way to survive a gas supply stop from Russia. now Read article…
Many people suspect that the politicians in Berlin are currently selling an illusion: that our life and our economic production can largely continue as before – even after Vladimir Putin’s declaration of war on Ukraine, on the West and on the world economy. Realistically speaking, we have to put the energy transition in coffins, which has always been propagated but only weakly practiced.
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Our energy expert Jürgen Flauger names ten “inconvenient truths” in his editorial. These include his recommendations to significantly increase the pace of the expansion of renewable energies, to extend the phase-out of coal, to end the ghost debate about nuclear power, not to overburden the economy and to import more nuclear and coal-fired electricity. More energy efficiency is also a way – one that our guest commentators Veronika Grimm and Andreas Kuhlmann suggest. Read article now…
Information is circulating that there is progress in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. That is the language of speculation. The language of reality is different. The Russian army is carrying on the war by bombing a military site up to six kilometers from the Polish border, which is very close to NATO territory. According to the Financial Times and New York Times, Vladimir Putin asked China for military and economic help. Then Brent Renaud, the first US journalist, died in this war.
All of these peace and ceasefire rumors may have the quality of the news that circulated just before the Ukraine invasion. After that, part of Putin’s troops just withdrew. It’s more likely that the autocrat in the Kremlin is doing everything to keep this war from ending to a higher level. He wants as much conquered land and as many destroyed cities as possible when it comes to Ukrainian capitulation talks according to his taste. Every shred of trust is out of place here.
We remember George Bernard Shaw: “The punishment of the liar is not that no one believes him anymore, but that he can no longer believe anyone himself.” Read article now…
The hacker group “Anonymous” acting against Russia has apparently attacked the German subsidiary of the state oil company Rosneft with far-reaching consequences. 20 terabytes of data are said to have been stolen. The Federal Office for Information Security is consulting with the Russian company that reported the IT security incident. The agency also issued a cyber security warning. The operation of Rosneft Germany – responsible for 25 percent of all crude oil imports – is said to be disrupted.
Incidentally, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is the head of Rosneft’s supervisory board. After a flying visit to Moscow, the social democrat has returned to Germany to stay with his friend and financier Putin. Read article now…
They call him the “CEO Whisperer”, the influential management professor at Yale University who is on a mission. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld wants to convince the business elite of the principle of social responsibility, of turning away from clumsy “shareholder value capitalism”. The 67-year-old is currently proud that there are already more than 330 US companies on his get out of Russia list: including BP, Shell, Exxon, McKinsey, Bain, Boston Consulting, IBM, Meta, Apple and Alphabet . “A lot of CEOs wanted to be seen as doing the right thing,” he told the Washington Post.
These lists would give courageous CEOs self-confidence and would-be courageous confirmation to dare something in their committees. Since it is no longer clear who is serious and who just wants PR, the Yale professor proposes a division into three categories: one for companies that have ceased their Russian activities, one for those that temporarily cease operations, and finally one for bosses who just dabble in a bit of anti-Putin cosmetics. One would be only too happy to study the German version of such a list.
Today, Monday, the European Council of Ministers will clear the way for a 40 percent quota of women on the supervisory boards of listed companies. The regulation surpasses the previous German practices, which provided for only 30 percent for stock exchange groups with equal co-determination. Now thoroughly masculine companies like Porsche SE, Siemens Healthineers and Qiagen have to send out their headhunters to look for women. There are still five companies in the MDax without a single member of the supervisory board: Sixt, Nemetschek, Hypoport, Rational and Varta. Read article now…
And then there is investor Lars Windhorst, 45. He put 375 million euros into his football dream of the “Big City Club” and has to see how Hertha BSC, which he fed in Berlin, stumbles towards second division after many defeats. Windhorst promises never to give up, which he gave a taste of yesterday in a heated dialogue on Twitter with a fan club criticizing him: “… appalled by the nonsense you are spreading here”.
On the same day, coach Tayfun Korkut was replaced after a few months by oldie Felix Magath, 68. He celebrated his great successes with FC Bayern Munich and Volkswagen Wolfsburg in the second half of the 2010s. Last coaching station 2016/17 was the Chinese club Shandong Taishan. In 2020, the man, whom they call “Quälix” because of his love for medicine balls, dilettanteed as football boss of the temporary second division team Würzburger Kickers. In Berlin, in the Windhorst camp, they are hoping for an old saying: “Miracles only come to those who believe in them.”
I wish you, of course, a wonderful start to the week.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
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