Good morning dear readers,
what is more surprising about Friedrich Merz? That the great soloist is now coming up with a team in the third attempt for the CDU chairmanship? Or that he boldly calls it “Team CDU”, although it is only an “IG Merz”: an interest group for which the ex-parliamentary group leader from 2002 got two new members of the Bundestag for the General Secretariat – Berlin’s ex-Social Senator Mario Czaja, 46, as well as the Swabian local politician Christina Stumpp, 34. As a middle-class man, Merz, 66, wants to use his last chance with the additional elements “social” and “female”.
Current surveys see his rival Norbert Röttgen ahead, but that is water level policy. And candidate Merz can count on Carsten Linnemann, 44, who is leaving the chairmanship of the SME and Economic Union (MIT) after eight years, according to the “Spiegel”. The paladin is scheduled as party vice and head of the policy and program committee.
One can assume, however, that behind the scenes of the CDU, further candidacies in the male-dominated show run will be diligently screwed up. The anger is great that for PR reasons the decorative position of a deputy general secretary is invented for the young force Stumpp. Incidentally, despite the greatest ambitions, the Brandenburg-born Sabine Buder was not given a place by the Märkisch-Oderland district association to apply for the party’s CEO job, which Angela Merkel had been intriguing for many years.
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As far as Merkel is concerned: One is alarmed when the former CDU leader and still-chancellor is financed an office with nine employees from tax revenues after the end of the term of office. This “lifelong full equipment” (Federal Audit Office) has almost twice as many staff as the budget committee had planned. Merkel did benefit from the modesty bonus in elections, but he does not retire.
Especially countries like Bavaria and Saxony with their low vaccination rates currently have a corona problem – the hospitals there are sounding the alarm about the lack of intensive care beds. All German clinics are currently reporting a total of 6500 fewer intensive care beds than in 2020. Above all, there is a shortage of nursing staff. It is unclear how much capacity can be created by relocating predictable operations. Gerald Gaß, head of the German Hospital Society, calls for a mandatory vaccination for medical professions in the Handelsblatt: “Many in the clinics and nursing homes have no sympathy for those who come to work unvaccinated. That leads to frustration among vaccinated people, which we cannot use. “
Gaß believes that the number of corona patients in intensive care units will rise from 3200 to 4000 in ten days. But the usual alarmism cannot be made with him: “There is not one value where we say: Now the entire health system is collapsing. Seriously ill people will also receive care in the fourth wave, I’m sure of that. ”
It stays, it goes, it stays, it goes – that’s how VW employees count these days, but on their fingers and not on the leaves of a flower as in the French game “Euffeuiller la Marguerite”. The future of the always lively CEO Herbert Diess, obsessed with the future of the auto industry, depends on a mediation committee that has been supposed to pacify the ongoing dispute with the works council since Friday. On the supervisory board, it is currently twelve to eight against Diess, describes our cover story.
The preliminary decision has to be made next week – otherwise the Supervisory Board cannot, as planned, vote on the investment plan and the appointment of new board members on December 9th. Perhaps the works council will come up with the idea of quoting Plato: “Access to power must be reserved for people who are not in love with it.”
For its 175th birthday, the Carl Zeiss Group is making itself a valuable gift: for the first time more than seven billion euros in sales and an operating result (EBIT) of well over one billion. In the celebratory mood, Dieter Kurz, head of the decisive Carl Zeiss Foundation and the supervisory boards of the affiliated companies Carl Zeiss and Schott, presented himself in an interview. The specialty is the use of extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) in chip production. ASML and Trumpf are partners here. In detail, the physicist says about …
- … the coup with EUV: “It was an exceptionally long-term project in which it was not clear for years whether the technology could also be used in practice. The financial risks were correspondingly great; we invested more than a billion euros. Failure would have been bearable only with difficulty. “
- … the importance of your own technology: “We are something like the heartbeat of digitization and we leave traces. In doing so, we overtook our competitors. Together with our partners we are alone today. “
- … the own foundation structure: “Most of the profits remain with the company and can thus be used again for innovations. The modalities of the distribution are regulated in the statutes. It is on average in the single-digit percentage range. “
We learn: The success in the Swabian Oberkochen is based on modernity and tradition, on future chips as well as on the venerable foundation statutes of the industrial social revolutionary Ernst Abbe from the year 1889. The entrepreneur said sentences that would be assigned to Sahra Wagenknecht today: “It is with us Capital is not master of labor, but servant of labor. ”
(Photo: Bloomberg)
And then there’s US President Joe Biden who was struggling to find a relaxation dialogue in a virtual conference with China’s ruler Xi Jinping. One wants to talk intensively with Beijing about the nuclear stocks, about the arsenal of nuclear weapons, it is said. A day later it emerges that Biden’s government is apparently planning a diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing – in protest against human rights violations.
The athletes are expected to diligently accumulate gold medals for “America first” at the games that will begin in February 2022, but without the accompaniment of officials and politicians. All in all, this PR pod didn’t deserve a medal in the final accounts.
I wish you a successful day at the top of the podium.
I warmly greet you
you
Hans-Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
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