Three days after Putin’s war against Ukraine started, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in a special session of the Bundestag, proclaimed a Zeitenwende, in the sense of a historic shift. The Russian invasion of Ukraine shattered many fundamental convictions of German politics, including “change through trade” (Wandel durch Handel), which had prevailed for decades. In a … [Read more...] about Did Germany Inadvertently Encourage Putin’s War?
Cultural Change At the German Bundesbank
Some ten weeks after the German Bundestag elections, a traffic light coalition of Social Democrats, Greens, and Free Democrats took office on December 8, 2021. Olaf Scholz, who served in the previous coalition government as finance minister, was elected chancellor. Now a set of new politicians are in charge. The new year also brought another unexpected leadership change, this … [Read more...] about Cultural Change At the German Bundesbank
An Impressive Failure – Angela Merkel bows out
On October 29, 2018, a day after the Christian Democrats in the State of Hesse suffered double-digit election losses, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a meeting of the CDU executive council that she would not stand again as candidate to head her party. “Angela Merkel is the first postwar German chancellor who managed to succeed where most politicians fail: to end her … [Read more...] about An Impressive Failure – Angela Merkel bows out
German Election Scorecard
The bursting of the Greens’ Baerbock bubble and the emergence of the CDU’s Laschet. But the Greens aren’t going away. Delegates to the Green Party conference, most connected digitally over a weekend in mid-June, adopted an election manifesto that calls for fast-tracking the switch to carbon neutrality over the next twenty years and vowing to turn Germany into a … [Read more...] about German Election Scorecard
Germany´s Wirecard scandal – the largest accounting fraud in the country´s postwar history
While all of Europe is still in the grip of the worst pandemic in a century, Germany’s political and financial establishments are also haunted by the Wirecard AG scandal. It is turning out to be the largest case of accounting fraud in the country’s post-war history. According to its promotion material, Wirecard authorized and processed payments for about 280,000 merchants, … [Read more...] about Germany´s Wirecard scandal – the largest accounting fraud in the country´s postwar history