exceptionally, the morning briefing is being released as a podcast today with a slight delay. We ask for your understanding and a little patience while we fix a technical problem.
It’s Washington’s worst-kept secret. Now it publishes a website of the capital called “The Hill”: Joe Biden is determined to seek re-election as US President in 2024. He also let ex-Prime Minister Barack Obama know, who visited him at the White House earlier this month. Biden was 78 when he took office – the age of no other American president before him.
In view of the high inflation, the pandemic and the Ukraine war, his poll numbers have fallen sharply. Joe Biden apparently wants to know anyway. The politician from the Democratic Party believes he is the only one who can win against Donald Trump, 75. Biden had already announced in December that he would run again if he was in good health. Vice President Kamala Harris is also a candidate again.
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Yes, she went into hiding somewhere between the file room and the Oval Office in Washington.
The latest development at the Netflix streaming service is almost as exciting as the question of who will be dating whom in the most popular Netflix series “Bridgerton”., which takes a look at courtship behavior during the ball season in England’s high society in the early 19th century. Drama, baby, drama, they say at the hyped US company after it lost subscribers for the first time in ten years, 200,000 between January and March. Another two million are expected to be sold in the second quarter – which pushed the share price down by up to 20 percent.
Netflix complains that in addition to the 222 million paying households, another 100 million share a Netflix account for free. Countries like Chile, Costa Rica or Peru are conspicuous here. But even giving up the Russian business will cost 700,000 customers. High household penetration, even if it’s not paid for, combined with intensified competition are creating headwinds, Netflix tells investors.
In other words: Great popularity no longer pays off.
The most recent strong earthquake hit the region around the Japanese town of Fukushima a month ago. However, the tremor that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is talking about is purely metaphorical and accompanies a bleak economic outlook. The economic impact of the Ukraine war “continued to spread like seismic waves emanating from the epicenter of an earthquake,” says the IMF.
In plain numbers, such as those loved by geographic economists, this means: The global economy will not grow by 4.4 percent in 2022, as was assumed in January, but only by 3.6 percent. Germany’s healing prognosis is downgraded from 3.8 percent to 2.1 percent. Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), who is taking part in the spring meeting of the IMF and World Bank in Washington for the first time this Wednesday, speaks of a “further warning signal that there is no easy business-as-usual.” Maybe Lindner will come back from the Potomac with a practical idea for seismic protection.
When Chancellor Olaf Scholz is currently talking about a sufficient and effective supply of arms to Ukraine, one knows that unlike in the USA, Great Britain, Poland or Lithuania, they will not be delivered from Germany. My colleague Martin Greive speaks of “Scholz” deceptive packaging.
(Photo: Getty Images)
When the Social Democrat, still in his old position as Federal Minister of Finance, was talking about his greatest success, the global minimum taxation of companies with at least 15 percent, he saw a “historic success” – but here, too, things are developing differently than expected:
- The reform should no longer take effect in 2023, but only in 2024.
- The US government may not get part of the reform through Congress, which weakens the enthusiasm of some states in Europe to implement the ideas.
- Above all, the taxation of the large digital companies, which Scholz once also aimed at, is viewed critically in Washington. Before the congressional elections in November nobody wants to risk anything anymore.
- Poland already blocked the whole thing at a meeting of EU finance ministers in early April.
It is quite possible that Great Britain and France will introduce national digital taxes in the autumn (of which nothing is heard in tame Germany). The emerging markets, which were promised a larger share of the global tax cake, are suffering. Is that Scholz’s next air hole?
“Promises only bind those who believe in them,” said former French President Jacques Chirac.
Multi-supervisory board member Sigmar Gabriel, former foreign minister and head of the SPD, first lectured on the Ukraine war and then regretted it. After Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s failed visit to Kyiv, he defended his fellow party member. Together with ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), he did “more than anyone else in Europe” to support Ukraine, according to Gabriel in the “Spiegel”. Everything else is “untruthful and malicious”.
Ukraine’s ambassador in Berlin, Andriy Melnyk, a lively critic of Steinmeier, countered that the “long-standing Putin-friendly policy” of Gabriel and his “SPD cronies” was particularly malicious: “The processing is still to come. Shame on you.”
Only a few hours later, ex-vice chancellor Gabriel actually acknowledged the failures of the former federal government in connection with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. “It was a mistake not to listen to the Eastern Europeans about the objections to Nord Stream 2. That was my mistake too,” he told Die Welt. Let’s see if that was the whole workup.
(Photo: imago images / Manngold)
Our reporters in the corporate department describe the “many pitfalls” of the withdrawal from Russia. The consumer goods group Henkel recently announced its end in the Eurasian wartime country – no other Dax group had been so active here. And SAP announced yesterday that, after the new business, it would now also phase out business with existing customers.
The need for advice is very high in such cases, and the process is likely to take ten to twelve months. Problems include concerns about local management, which could suffer pressure, as well as contractual ties and possible expropriations. At Henkel, a three-digit million amount is in the fire. And finally, it is about the long-term employees who are threatened with unemployment.
The solution to the problem at the food manufacturer Oetker is that the Russian plant was recently sold to the employees. However, due to concerns about the staff, Continental has restarted tire production at the Kaluga plant southwest of Moscow. The Dax group does not want to make profits with it.
And then there’s Jeffrey (“Jeff”) Terry Green, 45, rather inconspicuous company founder with thinning blond hair, who has set a pecuniary record. The boss of the Californian digital advertising company The Trade Desk could go down in US economic history as the highest-paid manager. Anyway, thanks to stock options for 2021, Mister Green is raking in a princely salary of $828 million – a small acknowledgment that he’s boosted the stock price.
The “Wall Street Journal” found no one in the salary information of the largest listed US corporations who achieved a similar level of remuneration. After all, Green, who is estimated to be worth $3.8 billion, has joined The Giving Pledge: You have to donate 90 percent of your wealth before you die.
“To be successful means: giving, always giving; you can’t prevent it from coming back,” comments the Swiss commercial entrepreneur Gottlieb Duttweiler (1888-1962).
I wish you a succesfull day.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs