You’re in luck for New Year’s Eve if you’ve planned a party for ten people. That is the upper limit that the federal and state governments will decide today for private meetings, valid from December 28th at the latest. After Christmas, clubs and discos will close and large events (sport, culture, society) will no longer be allowed to watch. The Bundesliga will therefore offer ghost games again, everything as before.
Germany simply prefers its New Year’s rest without Olaf Scholz having to apologize for it (like Angela Merkel for her Easter rest). It is such measures that appear to be “lockdown light” in the fight against Omikron. According to the resolution proposal for today’s top meeting, Christmas should be celebrated “together and safely” in a small, private group with tests. And there is a ban on gatherings and fireworks on New Year’s Eve.
“Everything sleeps, lonely wakes up” – this is how CSU boss Markus Söder, 54, sees himself in relation to Corona. Now it is no longer a question of profiling yourself as the most robust candidate for chancellor of all time with this issue, but rather as the true and only leader of the opposition before everything has even taken shape in Berlin. Söder has a sparkling rivalry with the future CDU boss Friedrich Merz, 66. This has repeatedly inspired Bavaria to taunts that have surpassed the insolence towards Armin Laschet by a lot.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
So it is noisy calculation when the Prime Minister, who is struggling with falling popularity curves, now demands “clear text” from the traffic light government when it comes to pandemic issues. Söder criticizes the FDP politician Wolfgang Kubicki, who has wandered in the direction of the “far right corner” in the debate about mandatory vaccinations, that parts of the coalition are “out of control”. Perhaps Söder’s outburst has something to do with the fact that he no longer has any CSU ministers in Berlin who can shovel project funds into Bavaria. So maybe he feels quite lost in the south, in his geographical “far right corner”.
When it comes to the damned pandemic topic, there are mood-enhancers on the product side. The corona vaccine from the US manufacturer Novavax is now approved in the EU – as the fifth serum. The Novavax vaccine is injected in two doses every three weeks and, according to the researchers, is 90 percent effective. To a certain extent, it is also an anti-swarming preparation, as it is not based on the mRNA process, but on a different technology.
And finally, the manufacturer Moderna has found that after a booster vaccination with its mRNA vaccine, you are very effectively protected against the omicron variant. Compared to a double vaccination, the antibody level increased 37-fold after a booster vaccination.
How much Jens Weidmann is in Joachim Nagel? Quite a lot, the FDP hopes, which is why, out of love for stable monetary value, it helped to make the SPD member the Bundesbank president. Very little, on the other hand, hope the SPD and the Greens, who are very open to modern green infrastructure, financed with more loans. In fact, Weidmann, who is firmly established in terms of monetary policy, has defined himself as a “hawk”, that is, a hardliner, while Nagel is not a dove on such issues, but is a nightingale of diplomacy.
Financial markets love flexibility, not adherence to principles. In 17 years at the Bundesbank – the last six of them as a board member – Nagel got to know the house well. The economist then broadened his horizons in top positions at KfW and the Bank for International Settlements. Perhaps the FDP will still be surprised at this “political animal”, but for the time being it is jubilant that it prevented the SPD favorite Isabel Schnabel from the European Central Bank.
Elon Musk is currently the richest person in the world with a fortune of $ 243 billion. In such situations, superlatives are inevitably the consequence of life – for example, being the chart breaker of the social tax office. “I will pay more than eleven billion dollars in taxes this year,” announced the CEO of the electric car manufacturer Tesla, visibly proud. He will pay the tax authorities more taxes in 2021 “than any American in history”. With him, the tax bill is still a record. The high tax burden is also the result of the fact that Musk recently redeemed several million stock options – and cashed in well in the process. Musk was pressed for time because otherwise the options would soon expire. In the end, however, he had made around $ 14 billion through stock sales.
His “unrequited love” for the radical Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders will be fulfilled again in view of his tax loyalty.
Conversations about the green restructuring of the economy, with a gentle, breathy emphasis on “sustainability”, are part of the modern etiquette of zeitgeist managers. But what does the simple question about the fleet of all the newborn ESG managers result in? Quite a lot of fossils, shows a Handelsblatt survey. In 2021, gasoline-powered vehicles will continue to dominate the fleet, pure e-cars will only play a minor role, as a few examples show:
Allianz Germany, Siemens Energy (six percent each), SAP (seven percent), Henkel (five percent), Siemens (two percent), RWE, BASF and Deutsche Bank (three percent each). Daimler doesn’t even give any figures. It looks best at Eon in Essen, where they offer 20 percent battery-powered vehicles and 30 percent plug-in hybrids. In fairness it should be mentioned that everyone has big plans.
One of Gabriel Boric’s tattoos shows a lighthouse surrounded by a wild, moving sea. This is probably how the idealist, who is only 35 years old and who was elected President of Chile for four years, feels. From that country where many curse the privatizations and the weak social policy, a legacy of the liberal “Chicago Boys” once brought by dictator Pinochet.
Boric, the child of an immigrant family from the Patagonian province, is supposed to remove the imbalances. “The current system makes me angry,” the former student leader likes to say, who mobilized the frustrated people. Marxist thinkers attracted the activist who has not yet completed his studies. As revolutionary as he is, on the other hand, he can be pragmatic: In the last major crisis of 2019, he was one of those who negotiated with the government to convene a constituent assembly. Boric probably thinks like Che Guevara: “Let’s be realistic, let’s try the impossible.”
Santa Claus is traveling light this year. Due to the delivery bottlenecks, not all wishes can be met. But there is not only a shortage of video game consoles such as the Playstation 5. There are also delivery problems with cars, kitchens, building materials and packaging materials. For our readers’ forum we want to know how you experience delivery bottlenecks. How have they influenced your private life or your company? Write to us in five sentences [email protected] We will publish selected contributions on Thursday in print and online, with attribution.
And then there is Ermenegildo (“Gildo”) Zegna, 66, who is fulfilling an old dream from Harvard’s days – and is on Wall Street with his Italian fashion empire. “We have practically created an integrated supply chain from the sheep to the shop,” he says in an interview with Handelsblatt. And praises his partner Andrea Bonomi, whose company went public, and his son Edoardo, director of marketing, digital affairs and sustainability.
“A woman always finds something when she goes into a shop”, philosophizes Zegna, a man, on the other hand, might only find one thing: “We want to change that, the men’s fashion world is becoming more and more feminine today.” 66 percent shareholder Zegna presents itself as a family -CEO who wants to stay until 70. What a counter-image to the “House of Gucci”, whose dynasty decades ago gambled away its own empire in a series of intrigues, initially to financial investors.
Because it is so beautiful at this point the classic by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: “If we want everything to stay as it is, then everything must change.”
I wish you a resourceful day.
I warmly greet you
Her
Hans-Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
You can subscribe to the Morning Briefing here: