The state in the plumber role

Conclusion: Vladimir Putin’s state monopoly capitalism results in German state capitalism.

Of the The state acts here like a plumber who is called in to seal pipes, but who actually has to build a new pipe system. But beyond the repair function, the necessary structural work, which also belonged to a “turning point” – the big strategic steps towards more energy saving, energy efficiency, energy self-sufficiency. First the EU internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, has to explain to the Germans that they, too, could let their nuclear power plants run longer. A solution that Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) quickly buried.

And what about 130 km/h on the Autobahn? What about pro-renewable contingency plans, what about an acceleration behind all those “Easter” and “Summer” packages? The seriousness of the measures is part of the seriousness of the situation. In the meantime, we’re all going on holiday again, as if there were no “turning point” and yet we know: it will show itself in autumn.

Opposition leader Friedrich Merz opposes Scholzism with a communication tool that, according to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, is the “leading motion of the week” in the Union faction. Currently, in this last regular week of meetings before the summer break, Merz and helpers want to devote themselves to the travel chaos at airports and long-distance train stations. The dream of a carefree holiday summer is bursting “between suitcases, queues and generally poor advance planning”, according to the leading motion to be decided today at the Union parliamentary group meeting, according to the “Süddeutsche”.

Merz wants to spread clear messages, namely “top-down instead of bottom-up”. In terms of flight chaos, he advocates that “by the end of the holiday season”, for example, “forces of the Federal Police” will help at security checks and baggage handling in airports. The police, your friend and porter.

As my colleagues Gerd Höhler and Christoph Herwartz show, Greek shipowners provide a small example of the ignoring of Putin’s state terrorism for the lowly end of the margin. On intricate routes they ship Russian oil and gas across the world’s oceans and prove that the supposedly harsh anti-Putin rules of the EU are more appearances than reality. Ironically, among the beneficiaries is George Prokopiou, an entrepreneur who signed a charter contract with the federal government for two floating liquid gas terminals in Wilhelmshaven at the beginning of May.

According to the non-governmental organization Global Witness, Greek, Maltese and Cypriot tankers have transported a total of around 178 million barrels of Russian oil with a market value of 17.3 billion dollars since the beginning of the war. Ships from the EU, Great Britain and Norway took on 80 percent of Russian deliveries to India, the new major customer.

Conclusion: Discretion is mandatory here, but not a matter of honour.

Andriy Melnyk was not a diplomat, but rather a provocateur who brought the initially cautious German government into action in the Ukraine war. The pugnacious Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin succeeded, sometimes at the cost of crossing red lines. Especially in the social democratic camp, people shook their heads at the 46-year-old, who most recently defended Stepan Bandera, who was noticed as a Ukrainian nationalist leader in World War II. Now Melnyk has fulfilled his Provo duty and is to be rewarded with the post of Deputy Foreign Minister. In German talk shows he will be missing

The country estimates the cost of rebuilding Ukraine at 720 billion euros, it was announced at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano, which is attended by almost 40 countries and 18 international organizations. The whole thing is to be financed largely from confiscated assets of the Russian state and the oligarchs.

Putin could also contribute his mite to this. A few years ago, the Kremlin put his annual salary at a meager $120,000. Accordingly, he only owns an 80 square meter apartment, three cars and a caravan. That The US magazine “Fortune”, however, estimates his fortune at an impressive 200 billion dollars, which would put him on an equal footing with the western capitalists Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos & Co. Suspected possessions include a Black Sea palace, the Igora ski resort in north-western Russia, several holiday homes and a villa near Moscow.

Journalists have researched that all assets linked to Putin are formally registered to companies and non-profit organizations that connect a technical infrastructure under the LLCInvest.ru email domain. According to the news site Meduza and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Putin network of 86 companies and organizations has over $4.5 billion.

Conclusion: When we think about Putin, the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky comes to mind: “The best definition of man is probably: ungrateful bipeds.”

And what is Putin’s American friend Donald Trump doing, whom he subtly helped during the 2016 election campaign? He is currently racing against the clock in the USA. The public meetings of the investigative committee before Congress unearth more and more undesirable internals. After that, the ex-president knew all about the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, a ringleader behind the operation.

It no longer helps him to defame a key witness like Cassidy Hutchinson as a “crazy”. The White House official testified under oath that Trump knew the demonstrators were armed and that he really wanted to walk with them to the Capitol

The anti-abortion ruling by Trump’s Supreme Court judges is also mobilizing his opponents. For all these reasons, the ex-president is considering a fast-track application for the 2024 presidential election, writes the New York Times. His greatest risk: that the US Department of Justice actually charges him. In the end, even the Supreme Court, which has moved to the right, may have no sympathy for putschists.

The old car world: Toyota and Volkswagen at the forefront. The new car world: BYD from China as number one. No one in the world sells more New Energy Vehicles (NEV), which the communist government in Beijing is banking on, than the company of founder and CEO Wang Chuanfu. Where rival Musk has to keep making improvements and, for example, has to close his new factory in Grünheide in Brandenburg for two weeks for better control, Wang is doing a “triple play” for his e-cars: with a large platform for automotive construction, his own Battery cell production without cobalt and, in the future, our own access to the important battery raw material lithium.

Apparently Build Your Dreams, which BYD stands for, is planning to buy six mines in Africa. From January to May 2022, Wang’s group delivered more than 505,000 e-cars in the world’s largest market, China, an increase of around 350 percent, while Tesla delivered almost 216,000 bodies.
And Volkswagen? Under also ran.

And then there is Stephan von Erffa, 47, once chief accountant at the collapsed Pinocchio company Wirecard. According to a report in the Financial Times, the man admitted to forging documents that had been requested by the auditors of KPMG as part of a special audit. Von Erffa is one of three accused in the proceedings brought by the Munich public prosecutor’s office.

Before him, only Oliver Bellenhaus, once the head of the Dubai subsidiary of the Dax financial group, had spoken as a key witness about the machinations of the company, which ended in bankruptcy in June 2020. 1.9 billion euros credit had dissolved in very hot air. Von Erffa initially denied any involvement in the fraud, but now admitted the manipulation, allegedly an isolated case.

Conclusion: We know from the Greek statesman Demosthenes: “Nothing is easier than self-deception, because what a person wants to believe, he also believes to be true.”
I wish you a truly beautiful day.

It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor

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