The Oil Price Shock and Other Dangers – Handelsblatt Morning Briefing

Inflation is also a consequence of expectations – and these are currently such that everyone is expecting inflation. How can it be otherwise when the barrel of oil suddenly costs more than $ 80, for the first time in seven years? Or if producer prices rose by twelve percent in August and prices for building by 12.6 percent? In a survey, the consulting firm Inverto found that many German companies are calculating with large price increases for important raw materials and intermediate products until well into 2022.

The supply of plastics is particularly critical, followed by aluminum, steel and other ferrous metals. According to another survey by the KfW banking group, almost every second small and medium-sized company in the country is struggling with delivery bottlenecks, our cover story says. KfW chief economist Fritzi Köhler-Geib: “That takes the momentum of the economy that has just picked up again.”

Gerhard Schröder has a sense of humor. He himself plays with the nickname “Gerdgas”, which is not always friendly.. The former Chancellor also knows that in the role of Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nord Stream, Nord Stream 2 and Rosneft, he should also bring in the role of his Russian shareholders. And so Schröder explains in the Handelsblatt guest commentary that rapidly increasing demand and a long, colder winter, which took up supplies, led to the enormous increases in the price of gas.

Top jobs of the day

Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.

According to the comparison portal Check24, 61 municipal utilities are therefore planning price increases averaging more than twelve percent in the coming months; 375,000 households are affected. Nothing with Vladimir Putin turning off the gas, explains Schröder.

The American liquefied natural gas (LNG), praised by the USA as “Freedom Gas”, is not being sold to Europe, but to China, Schröder continues to analyze. And I assure you that Russia will keep all treaties. The situation will gradually recover. His word in Putin’s ear.

The CDU cannot be denied having the courage to adopt a culture of mistakes. There have certainly been a few too many error culture events in the past three years after the party’s “primadonna assoluta” announced their withdrawal. After a few episodes in the series “Zauberland sucht den Superstar”, the Christian Democrats are now resorting to the panacea for too much disruption: You reinvent yourself from scratch.

The district chairmen have their say, possibly even the base, and at a party congress in early 2022 the entire CDU board will be re-elected – in memory of Armin Laschet. Nice to have a schedule. The program, message and a leader would be even nicer. Five candidates from North Rhine-Westphalia apply – “Wir an Rhein und Ruhr” – Ralph Brinkhaus, Carsten Linnemann, Friedrich Merz, Norbert Röttgen, Jens Spahn (in alphabetical order).

The search for a new party leader also occupies the AfD after co-leader Jörg Meuthen announcednot to run at the federal party conference in December. After a long struggle against the radical forces around Björn Höcke and the officially disbanded “wing”, the figure of hope for moderate, bourgeois circles gives up in exasperation. Their success in the federal elections in East Germany has caused anti-Meuthen sentiment to rise.

Rüdiger Lucassen, AfD boss in North Rhine-Westphalia, but also co-parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel are said to have ambitions as his successor. Meuthen’s co-party leader Tino Chrupalla is already known to want to continue.

Alexander Schallenberg takes over the office of Sebastian Kurz as Chancellor. But the party leader remains short.

In Austria, the Greens are proud of the fact that they got rid of Sebastian Kurz, who was involved in media and corruption affairs, as Chancellor in the federal government – and instead have to deal with the Kurz medium Alexander Schallenberg (“Schalli”). Shortly after his enthronement at the first address in the Chancellery, the previous foreign minister let everyone know that he would “naturally” “work very closely” with ÖVP boss Kurz.

And then followed, attention, an announcement to the judiciary investigating Kurz: “I consider the allegations in the room to be wrong and I am convinced that in the end it will come out that there was nothing wrong with them.”

In the background they are currently playing the old Franz Beckenbauer song at the ÖVP: “Nobody can separate good friends, good friends are never alone.”

If you live in Berlin and plan to travel by air, you might want to seriously consider Hamburg or Leipzig as departure locations. Possibly even faster, after all, Lufthansa is now seriously recommending its passengers to be four hours – “at least 240 minutes” – before departure at the airport that really doesn’t deserve the name “Willy Brandt”. Four hours – that’s how long the sprinter needs (when he’s driving) from Munich to Berlin.

Due to the holidays and fundamental shortcomings, the queues at check-in and at the security checkpoints in Berlin were so long that many travelers missed their flights. First BER is waiting for the opening and now for a boarding pass. “Berlin is just not a city, but a sad makeshift, Berlin is a conglomerate of calamities,” said Frank Wedekind – completely irrelevant of course – as early as 1908.

Conclusion: Maybe Elon Musk should simply build a new airport.

The DFB team was the first to secure participation in the 2022 World Cup.

(Photo: imago images / Nordphoto)

And then there is the German national soccer team, most recently drowned in the steel thunderstorms in the penalty area, which actually became the first team in the world to take part in the World Cup in Qatar in winter 2022. In the fifth win in the fifth game under the new coach Hansi Flick, they triumphed 4-0 against North Macedonia in Skopje. Incidentally, a team that was defeated 1: 2 at home.

Yesterday, 18-year-old Jamal Musiala was the youngest scorer of a German national team in 111 years, and the much maligned Timo Werner from Chelsea contributed two goals. Little lesson for Laschet and his people: Every tour of suffering comes to an end.

I wish you a successful day, stay optimistic.

I warmly greet you
you
Hans-Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor

You can subscribe to the Morning Briefing here:

.
source site