These days we remember a piece of wisdom from Otto von Bismarck. The “Iron Chancellor” once said that “there was never as much lying as before the election, during the war and after the hunt”. Sometimes it isn’t just plain lies that are being told, but rather staging a lazy truth – as is the case now in eastern Ukraine. As is well known, the Russian head of state Vladimir Putin sent his “peacekeeping troops” there in such large numbers that one cannot avoid “peace” at all – someone just has to call for it.
And so the separatist leaders of the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk wrote letters to Putin asking for military help. They wanted to fend off attacks by the Ukrainian army, says a Kremlin spokesman. Part of this bloody sleaze comedy is that the war dramaturge had promised Putin exactly this support in advance. In the early morning, the head of the Kremlin actually ordered the Russian military to deploy abroad in the affected regions – Ukraine is being attacked. A state of emergency has been in force in Ukraine since midnight, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared martial law this morning and the 27 member countries of the European Union are discussing how to hold Russia accountable at a special summit in Brussels today.
>> Read everything about the current developments here: Russia attacks Ukraine: Explosions reported in several cities, Zelensky imposes martial law
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During his tenure, critics repeatedly accused Trump of treating Putin with kid gloves.
(Photo: Reuters)
In view of the continued “peace” number, Donald Trump will probably follow up his radio interview yesterday with a second one today. The former US President spoke of his admiration when he saw his friend Putin on TV: “That’s awesome!” Declaring such a “big chunk of Ukraine” independent – “how clever that is!” And then the Russian peacekeeping force! He has never seen so many army tanks: “They will keep the peace!” Trump will probably explain today that Putin is so savvy and sophisticated that only one person can stop him. Guess who!
Putin is paying the price of war with oligarch sanctions, while the Germans are paying with higher energy prices. All indices are pointing steeply upwards, like the telescope in the observatory: gas up 20 percent, electricity prices up seven percent. As a result, the prices for fertilizers, aluminum and paper are likely to continue to rise. We describe the new trend in our title complex. The diagnosis: after the return of inflation, the price shock is now coming.
“Inflation rates are indeed higher than expected, and they will last longer than originally thought,” says Philip Lane, chief economist at the European Central Bank, in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine”. However, he believes that the current 5.1 percent inflation rate will return to the target level of two percent in the medium term.
>> Read here: Electricity, gas, oil: Industry fears the next price shock because of the Ukraine crisis
A start-up only needs the Internet – and because this is continuing in Ukraine, the scene of young entrepreneurs and founders there remains intact. The Eastern European country is a true paradise for economic pioneers. Almost 5000 IT companies and 200,000 software developers are based there. German companies such as the car rental company Sixt or Solarisbank have outsourced their IT departments to the Ukraine.
One of the young stars of the scene is Dima Shvets, CEO of Reface with 180 employees. One million people a day are already using his app, which allows you to integrate your own face into someone else’s image, an animated scene or a film sequence. An idea for such a sequence would be to say goodbye to Putin’s tank before driving home.
With his support campaigns for the unfortunate CDU chancellor candidate Armin Laschet, Volker Bouffier had little success. On my own, things should be better. On Friday, Hesse’s well-deserved Prime Minister wants to announce the successor plan at a retreat in Fulda. It looks as if the 70-year-old will make way for state parliament president Boris Rhein, 50, and a new management team well before the 2023 state election.
The Frankfurt politician Rhein was already Minister of the Interior as well as for Science and Art. He is also well liked by his coalition partner, the Greens. Interior Minister Peter Beuth is the new leader of the CDU parliamentary group. The previous incumbent, Eva Kühne-Hörmann, is to remain Minister of Justice. Bouffier is driven by the desire not to experience such a debacle again as in the Bund. When asked whether the Union would have won the federal election if Angela Merkel had resigned two years earlier, he replied: This assumption is obvious. Ultimately, it’s speculation, but there’s a lot to be said for it.
The head of Roland Berger wants to increase the company’s sales to one billion dollars by 2024.
(Photo: imago images/Metodi Popow)
Stefan Schaible doesn’t think much of doom and gloom, he prefers to look ahead positively. And the global managing partner also prefers the radical change that he recommends for Germany for the management consultancy Roland Berger. His goal: to increase sales from the current 640 million euros to around one billion by 2024. To this end, Schaible is currently examining a number of takeovers.
For financing, the Roland Berger boss is working on a possible IPO, which could bring a valuation of up to two billion euros. Consulting firms are actually committed to a discrete partner model and are reticent when it comes to the usual Ebitda-Ebit number orgies. Capital Market Days at Berger would be a surprise.
And then there is Julia Becker, publisher of the Funke media group from Essen. She is tired of watching the image debacle at the head of the Federal Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers (BDZV). Springer boss Mathias Döpfner is still the chief lobbyist there, unperturbed by the sex and compliance affairs in his company surrounding the “Bild” editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt, who was ultimately fired.
Most recently, the “Financial Times”, which Springer would have liked to buy years ago, put a heavy burden on the permanent CEO Döpfner. According to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, Julia Becker is demanding resignation as BDZV President and is threatening to leave the association. Since Funke is one of the largest contributors, this has an effect. One sees, explains Becker, “the values that characterize every publishing house committed to journalism” no longer adequately represented. And: One is concerned “that the credibility of the entire industry is at risk”.
“Trust is exhausted when it is claimed,” wrote Bertolt Brecht. In the Döpfner case, quite a lot is claimed.
I wish you a valuable day confirming your credibility.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
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