“Be nice to one another” was announced by Axel Springer in Hamburg when he was still half a social democrat and a proud regional newspaper publisher. Nobody posts stuff like that anymore. On the net one would be ridiculed for such a slogan.
But Robert Habeck has this kindness to each other. Even if he, as Federal Minister of Economics, of course knows that high prices indicate shortages and cause people to change their behavior, for example to drive less, he still sees the “perceived inflation” at the petrol pump as a human problem. Tank discount as social therapy.
The macroeconomic doctrine would say: No, that was not correct. I would say: It doesn’t matter, it helps a little, it relieves the burden,” concludes the Green politician. “And if it brings a little bit of kindness into the day, so to speak, then that has served its purpose.”
Okay, after three months of tank luck, the heating bill comes at some point, which the Vonovia boss kindly pointed out to us yesterday. But we also want to take Habeck’s warmth to heart and also bring a “little bit of friendliness” into the day.
IT professionals, for example, have a good laugh. The US corporations are driving the salary level so high that their German colleagues are also benefiting from the upward movement.
Google, for example, will pay a million dollars for a brilliant developer. Figures from the job platform Indeed show that the median for software architects in Silicon Valley is the equivalent of 140,000 euros (with bonuses and stock options even 216,000), in Germany, on the other hand, there is a comparable value of 85,000 euros and in the hipster capital of Berlin it is only 75,000 euros.
But something is moving. Now US corporations are looking for IT staff in Germany – and they pay well. Between 2019 and 2021, salary increases of 24 percent were normal for software people.
All career addicts should not forget the US poet Robert Frost: “If you consciously work eight hours a day, you can make it become a boss and work fourteen hours a day.”
Angela Merkel and Reiner Hoffmann have always been friendly to one another. In 2018, the ex-DGB boss encouraged the ex-chancellor to try again with a grand coalition. And so Merkel made her public appearance at the trade unionist’s farewell party last night for the first time in almost six months – as a laudatory speaker in front of 200 guests.
Her solidarity applies to Ukraine, said Merkel, and she supports all international efforts “to stop this barbaric war of aggression by Russia”. The Christian Democrat called on people in Germany to make their own contributions to European unification (“essential for survival”) and preached about letting go. After all, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow there will be another Prime Minister’s conference: “I can get through the day without it.”
Her successor Olaf Scholz has had tough weeks of amateur class communication, which is why my colleagues see him in the “unclear text trap”.. Yesterday, Wednesday, in the Bundestag, the chancellor gave the lie to all critics after opposition leader Friedrich Merz brought him up to operating temperature.
Scholz returned in a free speech: “More beef would have been really very sensible.” Then he accused the CDU politician of making mistakes and dubious assessments. The bad times for the Bundeswehr had begun when “a minister zu Guttenberg, with an affinity for the press, who communicated a lot and who was rarely in office,” began to save heavily and abolish conscription. Scholz: “Sometimes technical work is really useful, Mr. Merz.”
Then he listed all arms deliveries to Ukraine – and announced that he would deliver the most modern air defense system, “IRIS-T” from the company Diehl, with which one could protect an entire city from Russian air attacks. All surprising information, “because you danced questioningly through the landscape, Mr. Merz”.
Even Scholz skeptics will have to admit that a rather lively tango was offered here after a slow waltz.
In the fight against inflation, which reaches almost eight percent, the Chancellor has one Idea revived from the days of Keynesian helmsman Karl Schiller: that of “concerted action”.
That sounds more voluminous than all the alliances and networks that have existed recently. At the beginning in 1967 the thing had been a success. The government, local authorities, unions and Bundesbank talked about how many jobs, stable prices, reasonable growth and a trade balance (“magic square”) should be achieved.
But in 1978 there were only empty chairs at the “table of social reason” (Schiller). Employers and trade unions did not want to let their collective bargaining autonomy be taken away and were in total dispute over co-determination. Today they signal participation in the “concerted action” – within limits.
In the internationally popular series Marriages in Court, there was a lively episode between the once-married couple US actors Johnny Depp, 58, and Amber Heard, 36.
Now a jury has pronounced a verdict that is as bizarre as the six-week procedural mud fight. Both were found guilty of defamation (the charges involved were domestic violence), only Mrs. Heard a bit more. She has to pay $15 million of the $50 million in damages demanded.
He in turn paid her two million dollars. Unlike the film The Rum Diary, during which the couple met in 2009, this script does not end with a happy ending.
They weren’t married to each other, but for 14 years they acted as a “power couple” at the top of Facebook, which has become too small for “Meta”: Founders Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg – the woman who came from the World Bank and Google to give the social network general store a business outfit.
It was successful with advertisers and on the stock market, but the operation now seems to have seen better days. The share price falls as the losses for the Metaverse, which is designed as a Second Life empire, increase, scandals such as that surrounding Cambridge Analytica have miniaturized the image, and there is a risk that politics will break up the empire.
Sandberg will no longer pursue the whole thing as Chief Operating Officer, but only on the Board of Directors. It’s time to “write the next chapter of her life,” she says. In 2018, when rumors of a falling out between the two circulated, Zuckerberg said he hoped “we’ll continue working together for decades to come.” A decade on the internet can be very short.
And then there’s Elvis Presley, who is a legend in Las Vegas, where many couples from all over the world get married with an Elvis impersonator as the master of ceremonies. A brilliant marriage industry worth two billion dollars a year has grown there. For example, an “Elvis Chapel” in a cheap package for $195 offers not only conducting the marriage, but also singing two songs and leading the bride.
The Authentic Brands Group (ABG), which owns the naming rights to Elvis Presley, transmits loud noises into this idyll. Several of the gambling city’s wedding chapels received cease and desist orders: they should stop “unauthorized use” of Presley within a week or face legal action. The result: Trouble in paradise. Sadly, those willing to marry put on the Elvis hit “Can’t Help Falling in Love”: “Like a river flows / Surely to the sea / Darling, so it goes / Some things are meant to be.”
I wish you kindness, maybe even a little love on this day. So it goes.
Best regards
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor