everyone knows these numbers by now. They are indicators of a dependency, and no one laughs at blustering Donald Trump anymore. He accused Germany of having made itself a “prisoner” of Russia. 55 percent of the natural gas, 45 percent of the coal and 35 percent of the crude oil come to us from a state in which a Nero blend together with oligarchs and KGB cronies from the old days form a cartel of blackmail and subjugation. The impact of the raid on the global economy is likely to exceed the shockwaves that followed OPEC’s 1973 oil price usury, analyzes our big weekend report.
Almost eight percent inflation in the USA, almost six percent in the euro zone and reduced production in Germany are enough evidence. We learn that the Green Minister for Economic Affairs, Robert Habeck, calls the frightened managers of Eon, RWE and Uniper almost every day. And just like that, bought natural gas for 1.5 billion euros. Please send the invoice to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, Scharnhorststraße 34-37, Berlin.
Nobody lives off Russian energy as much as we do. As a result, no one in Europe is as opposed to a total embargo on gas, oil and coal as the Federal Republic. This can currently be seen at the EU summit in Versailles. The sanctions served to convince Russia to end the war quickly, explained Chancellor Olaf Scholz, but at the same time the effects on Europe must remain “as small as possible”.
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During a visit to Kosovo, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock assisted by arguing that an import ban would mean Germany would be without electricity and heat in a few weeks — that’s the kind of destabilization that Putin wants. Lithuania, Latvia and Poland have a completely different view of the relationship with direct neighbor Russia. At Versailles, Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins was convinced “that we should make the decision to stop energy imports from Russia in order to bring Putin to the negotiating table and end the war.”
Conclusion: Perhaps we should at least listen to the Eastern Europeans in the Putin case this time.
Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff’s grandfather was from Kyiv and made a living selling goat’s milk outside the metropolis. With the current war theme, Rogoff becomes correspondingly emotional and finds dramatic words about a historical turning point. In detail, he says in the Handelsblatt interview about…
- the risk of high debt: “I don’t see that in Germany. Thanks to the clever policies of recent years, there is sufficient fiscal leeway. The situation in countries like France and Italy is very different. Not only our own defense capability, which Europe is now resolutely trying to build up, but also energy security comes at a high price.”
- the economy of Russia: “The fact that the West is freezing the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves will have shocked Putin’s people. I expect 20 percent inflation and a severe recession in Russia. People will register that – no matter what kind of brainwashing they are subjected to.”
- China: “No one believes that anyone can stop Beijing if the country really starts invading Taiwan. And no one believes that it is possible to cut off China from the global economy like Russia did. But at least: China now sees that, despite military superiority, it is anything but easy to conquer a country. And it sees how united the West is.”
The longer one reads Rogoff, the greater the fear of soon having to talk about the annexation of other countries.
The picture of yesterday evening came via Instagram from Moscow. It shows Soyeon Schröder-Kim with folded hands and closed eyes in front of a window. In the background, illuminated: St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow. One can interpret this as a chance find and an inner incantation that her husband Gerhard Schröder may be successful with his peace mission with Vladimir Putin, whose troops are encircling Kyiv and bombing Mariupol into a city in ruins. As is well known, the president is a friend and financier of the former chancellor, who earns extra income as a member of the board of directors of the de facto state-owned companies Nord Stream, Rosneft and soon Gazprom.
Schröder flies into Moscow as surprisingly as Mathias Rust with his Cessna 172 P in 1987 on Red Square. With mediation services, the social democrat has often had the success that he now needs in his party. She is currently considering whether you can still call him “Comrade” and “Du”.
My cultural tip for the weekend: “Getting Together” by Natasha Brown – Debut novel about a young black woman of Jamaican ancestry who rises in the finance system of the City of London. She demands absolute performance from herself, wants to shine in tough competition, but at the same time doesn’t want to attract too much attention. Such a constellation must lead to failure, the reader suspects it and is led to the key scene at increased speed. The first-person narrator, who remains nameless, visits her boyfriend’s family at a feudal country estate. In the end she won’t belong again. Guaranteed unhappy ending, but still worth reading.
Incidentally, the author herself worked in the financial sector after studying mathematics in Cambridge and therefore knows only too well that promises of advancement are rarely fulfilled.
Hannah Arendt was right: “The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen.” Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier quoted the sentence yesterday in Mainz when saying goodbye to ZDF director Thomas Bellut.
Everything happened, according to the head of state: Russia is waging a brutal, inhuman war of aggression against Ukraine, and the Russian population shouldn’t find out about it. People in Ukraine are suffering death and displacement, parents are losing their children and vice versa, Russian soldiers are dying in large numbers – but the Russian population is not allowed to hear, see or read about it. Steinmeier: “Anyone who has to block out the light of information obviously needs darkness for what they are doing.”
The newly founded media association of the free press made such a current reference yesterday. It replaces the Association of German Magazine Publishers founded in 1949.
And then there is the Berlin garbage entrepreneur Eric Schweitzer, once President of the business representation DIHK, who makes a kind of entrepreneurial declaration of surrender. His Alba Group has announced that it may divest itself in whole or in part of its 93 percent stake in Cologne-based Alba SE, a specialist in the recycling of steel and scrap metal. The candidate for sale is making losses and does not help with the former master plan to stand up to the competing owner family Rethmann von Remondis.
Nominally, Alba SE is worth almost half a billion euros on the stock exchange, but Schweitzer will probably not bring that in. After the real division of the entire group with his brother Axel, a year-long decline in sales and a misalliance with Chinese investors, the Alba Group remains something between a concern and a disposal case.
We say goodbye with a bit of utility and Kurt Tucholsky: “The basis of a healthy order is a large wastepaper basket.”
I wish you a relaxing weekend.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
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