it’s been a while since books about Donald Trump had much impact. With “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America” by the “New York Times” journalist Maggie Haberman, it could be that time again in early October. She spread explosive photos about the “con artist” and the “destruction of America” that went with it. They allegedly prove that the man in the red baseball cap was illegally posted in the White House and Airforce One records during his presidency toilet flush in the Orkus – which Trump & Co deny.
In any case, the FBI secured documents, including secrets, when it removed 15 boxes of paper and even had a safe opened during a raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday. The principle “Panta Rhei”, everything flows, was of no further interest to the US Federal Police. Trump’s supporters already see “Deep State” at work: a conspiracy against Trump, who is planning his comeback.
For the first time, the US judiciary could not use the toilet for the “water removal” cause. The record so far is murky with God. From investigations into Trump’s hotel organization, which is said to have collected far too much rent from the state for Trump’s inauguration events, nothing has happened even after five years. Two investigations in Manhattan and in the state of New York are also stalled, according to which Trump is said to have deliberately given false information about the value of his real estate in his tax return – the reduced taxes and secured loans.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
In Georgia, on the other hand, it is about election fraud: on January 2, 2021, Trump is said to have asked the state Secretary of the Interior by telephone to “find” the missing votes for Trump’s election victory. Finally, most attention is paid to investigations into whether Trump supported or even planned a coup around the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The prosecutor is investigating.
In the legal dispute over the release of his tax documents to a committee of the House of Representatives, however, Trump has now suffered a defeat again. A District of Columbia appeals court ruled that the ex-president must release the documents in question.
Conclusion: Even in the USA, apparently no individual is still above the law.
(Photo: IMAGO/photothek)
Fortunately, when it comes to judicial investigations into important politicians, Germany operates on a different, lower level. But we also have a real affair: Cum-Ex. Banks and rich investors fleeced the state – and in Hamburg the SPD had a steaming close relationship with the Warburg Bank when it came to cum-ex.
214,800 euros in the safe deposit box of comrade Johannes Kahrs from the elite of the Hanseatic Social Democracy make one sit up and take notice, as does the information that Cum-Ex investigators searched all the e-mails of the former mayor Scholz for the period 2015 to 2018. The SPD politician has memory gaps when asked about his talks with Warburg officials.
Incidentally, there is also a revealing book in this political-financial thriller that will be published in October: “The Scholz Files” by the journalist Oliver Schröm. It was Kahrs, a friend of the Scholz party, who helped the Warburg bankers with Cum-Ex and “paved the way to financial supervision, to the Federal Ministry of Finance and to Scholz himself,” explains the author. Warburg himself denies any payment to Kahrs in connection with Cum-Ex.
How much more pleasant was a visit to the Frankfurt headquarters of the German Football Association (DFB) for Scholz on Monday! As is well known, it is an archaic organization that pays the men and women who play football on its behalf very differently. The head of government seems slightly human and quickly reforming.
Scholz demanded “Equal Pay” and criticized the fact that the national players, who recently performed so furiously at the European Championships, would only have received 60,000 euros each after winning the final, while the men would have received 400,000 euros each in this case in 2021. The Chancellor does not address the fact that TV broadcasting funds and thus the markets differ enormously. Vox populi demands something else. “I think it’s something political, so it makes sense to discuss the same bonuses,” said Scholz after his DFB trip, and: “We have 2022. Women and men should be paid the same.”
National coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg gives a realistic indication of the harmonization of fees – “perhaps a little less for men and a little more for women”.
In the end, one could think that an airline like Lufthansa used the code name “Sparbrötchen” internally for its operational operations. But no, everything is completely different: For example, the on-board catering, which was shut down during the hard Corona period, is to be activated in a completely new way. Erdmann Rauer, head of the Lufthansa subsidiary LSG Group, speaks: “Catering is more than the tray in front of each passenger. The vision of configuring your food becomes reality.”
It is a growth market for which EUR 21.8 billion is expected in 2027 after EUR 8.9 billion in 2020. And Lufthansa, like Air France, wants to offer sustainably produced food and good food in the future. After all the underperformance of the group, one says to oneself: here the appetite has to come from eating.
There are some local fintechs like Raisin from Berlin or WebID Solutions who are trying their luck in the USA. It’s difficult terrain. On the other hand: “You can find something better than death everywhere,” the Brothers Grimm let us know. The financial start-up Nuri (500,000 customers) with boss Kristina Walcker-Mayer, who filed for bankruptcy yesterday, was hit in the capital. The US partner, the crypto bank Celsius, had previously failed.
According to the Nuri company, the customers’ credit balances are not at risk, and this also applies to cryptocurrencies in digital wallets and the digital investment vehicle Nuri Pots. Apparently, banks and other fintechs are taking a close look at what can be exploited by the bankrupt company – who, by the way, does not have a banking license at all, but cooperates with Solaris.
And then there’s Serena Williams, 40, a tennis fighting and revenue machine, who has raked in nearly $100 million in prize money over 27 years on the pro tour. So what could be more natural for the American top athlete, who won 23 Grand Slam tournaments, than to announce her farewell in the noble journal “Vogue”: “I refused to admit that I had to stop playing tennis. It’s like a taboo subject,” she wrote: “It comes up and I start to cry.” It looks like Williams will be making his last big appearance at the US Open (from August 29) in New York to have.
She doesn’t want to talk about “retirement”, preferring to talk about “evolution”, and she takes it to more family and to a sibling for her daughter Alexis Olympia. In addition to the family, Williams takes care of “Serena Ventures” in San Francisco as an investor. She has already made 77 investments in start-ups via her platform, which was founded in 2014. 60 companies such as Send Wave, Master Class and Daily Harvest belong to the portfolio.
As for Mrs. Williams’ new career, let’s go with Mark Twain: “The secret of success is to start.”
I wish you a happy day with promising beginnings.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor