The Atomic Fantasy and Other Political Vaults

• Volte 1: The nuclear phase-out. It had long been decided for the end of this year, a fixed factor for Green politicians. And now Germany suddenly owns nuclear power plants in Sweden and Finland via the nationalized mega-corporation Uniper. Then Robert Habeck suddenly declared that “as of today”, the Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim nuclear power plants would have to continue running until April 2023. Reason: The disaster of the French nuclear industry around the state-owned company EDF, which cannot get its European pressurized water reactor (EPR) up and running in Flamanville and has to take old reactors that are in need of repairs off the grid.
• Volte 2: The gas allocation. For weeks it was portrayed as indispensable by the federal government, despite fierce resistance, and now it is being thrown away in the junk room of political errors. On the contrary, the gas price cap is coming.
• Volte 3: Nord Stream. The German-Russian Baltic Sea pipeline project, once praised as the unique infrastructure of the “bridging technology” gas, is a ruin on the seabed. There are growing signs that two blasts were carried out by a diver or a submarine, and there were explosions. Sweden, Denmark and Germany assume sabotage. Apparently, the CIA warned the federal government in the summer of such attacks on the gas pipelines, which incidentally are very reminiscent of KGB methods. “We are acting in absolute uncertainty,” commented Klaus Müller, head of the Federal Network Agency, at the Handelsblatt annual gas conference: “Unpleasant surprises” are always possible.

In other words: Everything like in a bad James Bond film.

Of course, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) is also right: “We are in the middle of an energy war,” he told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine”. This war is being waged with and for commodities, with the help of monopolies like Gazprom (today) or China Rare Earth Holding Ltd (maybe tomorrow). Lindner’s chief advisor, the Freiburg economics professor Lars Feld, predicts: “In the coming decades we will have many more arguments about raw materials, national economies are dependent on them.”

He speaks in my forthcoming book, The Monopoly of the 21st Century, which describes the megalomania of business, on topics ranging from data to media, from finance to commodities.

A reader sent me an infographic from the time of the first Ukrainian state (1918 to 1920), formulated from the perspective of Kyiv: According to this, Ukraine would leave a surplus for Central Europe via “its rich treasures of coal, ores, salt and petroleum”. . This is exactly what Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to follow in 2021 via the raw materials alliance with the EU before Putin intervened and attacked.

A few unpleasant truths about the energy war were also brought up at the Handelsblatt gas conference. Gunnar Lederer from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research pointed out that the demand for gas is not falling, but has actually increased recently: “Gas consumption has to go down and that’s why savings incentives through prices have to be maintained.”

Because households with low incomes are now spending up to 25 percent on energy costs, further state aid is needed.

This whole gas debate is an obstacle for Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) in the current election campaign. On October 9th there will be elections in his federal state, and in an interview with the Handelsblatt he states that there is a “pent-up demand” in terms of energy aid in the economy, “the measures have to be spelled out”. Incidentally, according to Weil, the debt brake should be suspended again in 2023: “What is now necessary cannot be done by the federal and state governments with on-board funds. When do we have an emergency if not now?”

This demand is supported by an illustrious duo in the Handelsblatt guest article: Michael Hüther, Director of the Institute of German Economics, and Jens Südekum, Professor of International Economics in Düsseldorf.

The prime ministers are dissatisfied with the back and forth of the federal government, which eagerly switches back and forth between “red”, “yellow” and “green” like a hobby DJ at the light show in the party cellar. It annoys her to keep hearing about new decisions from television (keyword “Volten”).

It scares them that the gas levy would have brought in 35 billion euros, but a price cap on gas and electricity can cost 100 billion. This Wednesday, the MPs want to talk about the federal government’s third relief package, but not with Olaf Scholz, who is suffering from Corona and who should be added in the Chancellery. Now the heads of the states are conferring all alone in the NRW state representation in Berlin, they don’t want to serve as claqueurs of the traffic lights.

Your demand: The federal government should determine the “emergency”. Everything else in the federal-state round next Tuesday.

Recommendations for such questions also come from the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt. There, chief economist Philip Lane advocates helping low-income people in view of the high current burdens: “The big question is whether part of this support should not be financed through tax increases for the better off. That can be higher taxes for higher earners or for sectors and companies that are highly profitable despite the energy shock.”

All of this is less inflationary than if the deficits were widened, according to the ECB economist, who also warns against wage agreements that are too high: “The high inflation will have to be reflected in higher wages. But it needs a balance.”

What is needed, Lane said, is that corporate profitability will fall and wages will not keep pace with inflation: “for a while, anyway.”

In today’s issue, a special emphasis is placed on an intergenerational dispute between Handelsblatt political boss Thomas Sigmund, 56, and the Heidelberg high school student Floriane Kerzmann, 15 – presented in the style of a WhatsApp conversation. It’s also about the “Winnetou” ban. Sigmund: “My generation grew up with the stories about Winnetou, Old Shatterhand, Apanatschi and Nscho-tschi. Most of us, as far as I can tell, got through this unscathed. I do wonder if a minority is now putting a majority in a headlock.”

Kerzmann: “I can understand that you don’t want to lose any part of your childhood, but I think it has to be weighed up what is more important: that a discriminatory book is banned or revised or that a whole group of people feels excluded.”

And then there is the Oktoberfest in Munich, a top-class corona superspreader event, which was advertised by the most brutal possible pandemic fighter Markus Söder as a “festival of joy and freedom”. A week and a half after the start of the beer tent fun, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for Munich reports that the seven-day incidence has increased by almost 77 percent to 424.9 within a week. Throughout Bavaria, the increase was only 43.1 percent, nationwide 29.4 percent. The number of unreported Wiesn infections is likely to be much higher.

Ten days after the start of other Bavarian folk festivals, there was a clear increase in the incidences. CSU Head of State Chancellery Florian Herrmann (“no clear wave”) unsaddles, Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) saddles up: “The Oktoberfest would have been safer with testing before admission and no less beautiful. At the prices per measure (around 13.50 euros; editor’s note), the tests would have been affordable.”

At the end, the journalist and theater critic Ludwig Börne comes to mind: “There are a thousand diseases, but only one health.”

I wish you a healthy day.

It greets you cordially

Her

Hans Jürgen Jakobs

PS: Would you like to know which companies are developing solutions for a healthier society? We will show you this on Thursday, September 29th, from 8 p.m. when we present the finalists of the German Digital Prize The Spark in a live stream. Sign up here.

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