The end of the fatigue
Chancellor receives in Meseberg, Brandenburg Angela Merkel the French President today Emmanuel Macron. The German government runs a guest house there and the Chancellor usually moves out into the countryside when it is supposed to be a bit festive.
Now you have to know that Macron was also in Meseberg almost exactly two years ago. Even then, Merkel tried to be solemn. Great words were said about the shared commitment to Europe. “We are opening a new chapter across the board,” said the Chancellor two years ago. But it was only Words. Merkel, who had previously routinely ignored all Macron’s European policy advances, remained a stubborn European even after Meseberg.
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Only with the corona crisis did something change. It was sheer need that made her act. The fear of the abyss made the German chancellor a little more courageous and generous. Together with Macron, she recently developed the idea of a European reconstruction plan with the massive volume of 750 billion euros. In Meseberg they want to talk about further measures how the continent can be brought out of the crisis – political as well as health.
Of course it is good that something is finally going on. But it is also regrettable that this chancellor lacked the drive to shape without the shock of the crisis. Politicians who fail in crises are wrongly cast. But politicians who shine especially in crises are far from ideal.
Make America Sick Again
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The US corona situation is worse than ever. The number of registered newly infected the last day was over 40,000 – and thus significantly above the previous highs that led to the (very late) lockdown of the country in March and April. With the impatience of toddlers who can’t sit still for ten minutes, President urged Donald Trump and many (mostly republican) governors on a quick end to the lockdown – much too early, as it now shows.
The US paid an immense price for the lockdown. More than 40 million citizens lost their jobs. Tens of thousands of companies went bankrupt. Millions of people fell into poverty due to a lack of social security systems. In retrospect, you have to say that these huge victims were largely worthless. Because now second epidemic wave moves across the country that is larger than the first. Almost 130,000 U.S. citizens have died of Covid-19 so far. And with a view to the current infection, the sad truth is: Many more will follow.
The political handling of the pandemic is nothing more than one disaster. If complaints about a patchwork of regulations are made in Germany because some of the 16 federal states have adopted various corona measures, the United States shows what a real patchwork looks like. Each of the 50 states does what it wants. And most of them are damn wrong. The blame for chaos therefore lies with them Gouverneuren.
But this level of disaster was only achieved because the man in the White House deliberately refused to lead. The honest slogan for Donald Trump’s election campaign now starting would be: “Make America Sick again”.
Losers of the weekend …
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… is the one Hamburger SV. Anyone who can secure at least one relegation place for promotion to the Bundesliga with a tie against SV Sandhausen and then loses 1: 5, deserves only pity, no more mockery.
So my weekend loser is that FC Schalke 04. This is less due to the fact that the club lost the last game of the past Bundesliga season with 0: 4 and was the worst second half of all 18 Bundesliga clubs (SC Paderborn and Fortuna Düsseldorf still have to relegate).
The sporty disaster is still harmless compared to the Overall situation of the club. The once so honest traditional club from the Ruhr area has been pumping for years and carries a huge debt burden with it. One is kept alive by millions, among others, who are sponsored by the Russian state company Gazprom. The fact that Schalke has indirectly become the advertising pillar of an autocracy has long been irritating. It was morally a bankruptcy declaration to fire 24 long-serving employees in the corona crisis as the first cost-cutting measure, who worked as mini-jobbers for the club on a 450 euro basis.
It is also difficult to reconcile with the tradition of a workers’ association Clemens Tönnies to provide a chairman of the supervisory board who, as a meat producer, hardly knows any of his workers personally and has them toiled in his slaughterhouses, sometimes in inhumane conditions. That Tönnies had only declared last year that power plants in Africa should be financed because “the Africans” would then stop “when it’s dark to produce children”, should only be mentioned here in passing. As I said, compared to this record, a 0: 4 in Freiburg is really gratifying.
It is clear that the association now urgently needs new staff. New strikers would be good, maybe a different coach. The most important thing would be a new chairman of the supervisory board. Or best of all: a completely new tour.
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