Blackmail succeeds when one person has something that the other cannot get in any other way and therefore pays a lot of money for it. We can see how this can work politically in the case of the well-known specialist Vladimir Putin. The Russian President has made Germany so dependent on its gas that everyone is worried about how much of it will flow again today after ten days of abstinence. First it should be 40 percent, then Federal Network Agency boss Klaus Müller reduced it to 30 percent. That would be below the German winter warming limit: From then on, the great freezing begins.
Meanwhile, the top designers of the Russian blackmail economy are placing the threat of an attack on the entire Ukraine (Sergey Lavrov) or the reactivation of old German-Russian fraternization plans. Refreshed from a meeting with two other dictators (from Turkey and Iran), Putin announced: We still have a finished route – that is Nord Stream 2. We can put it into operation.
In truth, this gas pipeline is not an operational case, but a graveyard of globalization, a pipe to nothing.
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“We are only worms, but we were born to become a heavenly butterfly,” wrote the great Dante Alighieri. In that sense, what’s happening right now in Dante’s native Italy is pretty wormy. Last night Prime Minister Mario Draghi, 74, won a confidence vote in the Senate by 95 votes to 39, but it was still a defeat. The major governing parties Lega, Forza Italia and the Five Star Movement did not vote, a renewed sign of distrust.
(Photo: AP)
The “pact of trust” that Draghi spoke of dissolves in a fog of suspicion. This makes it likely that Draghi will again offer his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella. The man has lost face and the traitors to his government their conscience. “From tomorrow nothing will be the same as it was before,” said ex-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The only question is how to keep Europe’s flame burning.
If you could listen to Boris Johnson, you would probably detect a huge dose of self-confidence. That anyone other than the British Conservatives (“Tories”) could take over political leadership in Britain seems as unlikely in this world view as a palm garden in the Scottish Highlands. After a vote in the conservative parliamentary group, it is now clear who is fighting to become the successor to Prime Minister Johnson, who is always a little too extroverted: Ex-Finance Minister Rishi Sunak or Foreign Minister Liz Truss.
Sunak, a man of the center, is considered the favourite, but the right-wing conservative wing around Truss is backing a campaign that has seen Sunak responsible for the biggest tax hikes in decades. 175,000 party members decide by September 5 who will lead the party. Next week chief contenders Sunak and Truss will meet in a TV duel on the BBC, motto: him or her. Boris Johnson, on the other hand, did not say goodbye in Parliament with a quote from Winston Churchill, who he adapted as a “role model”, but with the “Terminator”: “Hasta la vista, baby.”
Elon Musk, wisp of the stock exchanges, again offers a taste of his agility. The balance sheet for the second quarter of 2022 shows how the Tesla boss calculates pro cryptocurrencies beyond his chatter: The e-car company surprisingly sold 75 percent of its Bitcoin stock, which increased the cash position by $ 936 million. Profits doubled to $2.3 billion compared to the previous year.
Since analysts had expected significantly less profit, Tesla shares initially rose by around four percent in after-hours trading. But there is also another analysis: Compared to the previous quarter, Tesla sales fell, also because the plant in Shanghai had to close temporarily due to a corona lockdown and production faltered in the new plants in Brandenburg and Texas.
Friedel Neuber (1935-2004), once the head of WestLB and the “red godfather” of the state banks, said to me many years ago, “Why should it always be the others who do the good business?” Later, many at the top of public financial institutions with politicians on their supervisory boards thought like him, and even took part in the most disreputable cum-ex tax rip-offs.
The astonishing thing is that while investigators at private institutes bend over backwards in matters of cum-ex and process follows process, the zeal of the state in state institutions has evaporated, if it ever existed. We show that in a large report. In the process, WestLB & Co. stole almost a billion euros, but somehow it stayed with Father State.
The Justitia that we see here has neither a blindfold nor a sword nor scales. She has osteoarthritis and is obviously biased. Not a single Landesbanker was charged with Cum-Ex, let alone convicted. Christoph Spengel, tax professor at the University of Mannheim: “Public banks, of all people, are very lax in their clarification. Apparently, the state is taking less decisive action against Landesbanken than against private banks.”
At the former state bank of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, HSH Nordbank, despite excessive cum-ex transactions, there was not even an initial suspicion, but only a file with “observation processes”. After that: silence. It wasn’t the silence after the shot, but silence without a shot. And Hamburg’s first politician Peter Tschentscher (SPD) boldly claimed that everything had been “consistently cleared up” and that HSH had paid “heavy fines”.
At this point we give Friedrich Schiller: “The deceit / He wraps himself deceptively in big words / And in language oratory adornment.”
And then there is Olaf Scholz, Chancellor on vacation, who, together with his wife Britta Ernst, is looking for relaxation for two weeks in the Allgäu town of Nesselwang. You reside in a renovated farmhouse from the 17th century with six rooms, terrace, wine cellar and a wellness area with sauna. At a cost of 550 euros per night, the two SPD forces can enjoy the panorama here. Scholz shows himself in an almost contemplative attitude, with a T-shirt and glasses, but the air mattress mode is still missing. According to a spokesman, there should be no more appointments from Tuesday next week – but the chancellor can always be reached. The next Putin blackmail could come.
I wish you a lively day.
Greetings to you as always
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
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