the persistently high oil price gives the United States the idea of a rare self-defense measure. The Washington government is discussing tapping into the country’s strategic oil reserve. The depots were set up after the global oil crisis in 1973. In total, the oil reserve could meet the country’s oil needs for 35 days.
The last time the US drew on supplies was 16 years old when Hurricane Katrina temporarily stopped oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and as a result the oil price rose to more than 70 dollars a barrel. Washington hopes the reserve plan will bring the price down. US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm: “All tools are on the table.”
There has been so much to read and hear about “Jamaica” in the last few months, this “Jamaica” over and over again, that at some point you just have to reach for Bob Marley on the shelf. Then “Get Up, Stand Up” can be heard, and one thinks of the almost desperate hopes of CDU boss Armin Laschet to somehow become chancellor with the help of the Greens and the FDP against all opposition. But getting up is of no use if the two desired partners – as happened – decide to hold coalition talks with the election winner SPD.
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“We are ready,” Laschet can only say. Markus Söder is responsible for the realism in the “headless Union” (“South German”). The CSU boss speaks of a “de facto rejection of Jamaica” and the traffic light as “the clear number one”. The “preliminary decision” that Söder also speaks of is a political pension for Laschet. Bob Marley continues to turn and you listen – in sympathy for Laschet – the next song: “No More Trouble”.
(Photo: imago images / SEPA.Media)
The CDU boss can sing a lively song about how difficult it is to win an election with bad press (and bad photos). In Austria, ÖVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz found an effective, but illegal, means, according to the investigators: positive reviews easy to buy. Funds from the Ministry of Finance were therefore used to publish “exclusively party-politically motivated, sometimes manipulated surveys by an opinion research company” in his interest.
In addition, it was alleged that the tabloid “Austria” was paid – “hidden consideration” for the possibility of influencing editorial reporting. The judiciary examined the Chancellery and the headquarters of the conservative ruling party. Kurz only sees employees of the finance ministry affected, the co-governing Greens defending the judiciary – a coalition crisis is looming here.
A Viennese political scientist: “If the allegations are correct, Ibiza is a small island in the Mediterranean by comparison.”
A surprising alliance of industry and climate protectors is calling for the federal government a resounding “yes” to the innovative method of shooting excess CO2 into the ground. The “Carbon Capture and Storage” (CCS) method and the capture and use of CO2 are “central pillars on the way for industry to achieve climate neutrality”, according to a declaration available to the Handelsblatt.
In addition to the industry associations, it is also supported by the 2 Grad Foundation, in which corporations such as Allianz or EnBW are demanding ambitious climate protection, as well as by the climate protection organization Bellona. Without CCS, “zero emissions in industry cannot be achieved,” says Bellona Germany boss Erika Bellmann. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is also on this line – unlike the Greens, the possible ruling party. She avoids this topic like the organic farmer glyphosate.
Creating a new awareness for entrepreneurial families “who develop a spirit of innovation but prefer to think long-term” – that is the goal of BMW major shareholder Susanne Klatten. “This combination – innovation and sustainability – is the future”, she explains in the Handelsblatt. And so the start-up factory UnternehmerTUM, which it finances, is now launching a new start-up center for German medium-sized companies in Munich. Obvious name: FamilienunternehmerTUM.
The number of cooperating companies is expected to increase from 50 to 500 in four years. The basic attitude is that there has been enough talk about innovation at congresses. Now it is important to show the advantages of digitization in practice. Christian Mohr, founder of the initiative, still senses strong resistance in some houses: “You don’t drill thick boards, but concrete ceilings.”
In addition to Klatten, the head of the supervisory board, other major financiers will soon become active at UnternehmerTUM: the pharmaceutical entrepreneurs Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann.
He attacked Wirecard and Grenke, and now the British financial juggler Fraser Perring is devoting himself entirely to the real estate giant Adler in a 61-page report. This is where it really gets down to business:
- The group is taking over better capitalized companies, burdening them with debts and hollowing them out through secret transactions with related parties.
- There are idle construction sites, accounting tricks and a suspected overvaluation of real estate.
- The entrepreneur Cevdet Caner supposedly controls the Adler company from the background, like a shadow CEO.
Caner and the company deny the allegations and threaten legal action. Investors reacted nonetheless and sent the Adler share into a nosedive at 25 percent at the close of trading, like the eagle on a Baselitz painting. Adler recently announced that it would examine offers from institutional investors who want to buy part of the group’s rental apartments. Such a deal is necessary to reduce the debt burden.
Karl Kraus comments: “Life is an effort worthy of a better cause.”
And then there is the American ex-President Donald Trump, who is voted out not only in politics but also in business. In any case, the original capitalist magazine “Forbes” decided for the first time in a quarter of a century not to include the real estate entrepreneur in the list of the 400 richest Americans. Trump’s assets of $ 2.5 billion are simply no longer enough, the experts find. The 75-year-old, who finished 339th in 2020, is missing around 400 million. However, the pandemic reduced Trump’s holdings by an estimated $ 600 million.
Trump was the richest in 2015, when “Forbes” valued him at $ 4.5 billion. But then the politicizing billionaire became president – from then on things went downhill.
I warmly greet you
you
Hans-Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
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