The Art of Interviews
Usually, I’m not a big fan of political interviews - they are usually scripted, bland, and used as tools to propagate known agendas. However, in the last months, I came across two interviews that have made me reconsider my views. Both interviews are with German chancellors.
The first one is the president of Germany Olaf Scholz talking to the leading German daily Der Speigel. This has to be one of the best and the toughest interview I have read in a while. The questions are straight-up brutal and aggressive.
And second, the NYtimes doing an interview and profile of ex-German Chancellor Gerard Schröder.
Let's start with the first one - Olaf Scholz
The title is - What are you afraid of? Already an explosive start. To give some context, Olaf Scholz has been passive and resisting to openly support Ukraine in the war against Russia.
I will just share the questions since the answers are standard Olaf responses and nothing special than explanations of this stance in vague form. The questions are to the point and exhibit naked aggression of the interviewer. With these questions, you get an idea of how much reputation Olaf Scholz has lost.
DER SPIEGEL: So, let's be clear: Neither you nor the SPD, nor the Germans are pacifist. Why, then, are you not doing everything in your power to assist Ukraine militarily against Russia?
DER SPIEGEL: Your poll ratings are plummeting. Could this also be due to the impression that people are being massacred in Ukraine, while forms still need to be filled out in Germany?
DER SPIEGEL: Are you not afraid of having to look back later and say: We should have done more to stop this killing?
DER SPIEGEL: You emphasize Ukraine’s sovereignty, but at the same time you are not granting the wish of an immediate gas embargo out of fear of economic upheaval . This means that we Germans are still filling Putin’s war chest. Can you understand how Kyiv might see your words as a mockery?
DER SPIEGEL: After the invasion, do we seriously have to assure Putin that we mean no harm to his country?
DER SPIEGEL: If Moscow already violated this principle in 2014, then wasn’t it a mistake to allow the Nord Stream 2 German-Russian gas pipeline project to continue?
DER SPIEGEL: But Russia’s aim with Nord Stream 2 was to exclude Ukraine from the gas pipeline. Why did you support that endeavor for so long?
DER SPIEGEL: But again: Was allowing Russia to isolate Ukraine in the gas business the right response to the annexation of Crimea?
And my personal favorite:
DER SPIEGEL: Why are you unable to utter these words: Nord Stream 2 was a mistake?
And it continues
DER SPIEGEL: Do you at least see the establishment of a foundation financed with Russian money for the construction of Nord Stream 2 as a mistake today?
DER SPIEGEL: Can you understand that you seem a bit arrogant to some people because you always claim to have known the right course – and you don't seem to want to have anything to do with your party's mistakes?
If I was in Olaf’s place, I would need a couple of days to recover from this interview. You can read the full interview here.
Moving to the second one - Schröder’s profile
The interview is sarcastic to the core and even mocks German politics and the ex-chancellor with its title - The Former Chancellor Who Became Putin’s Man in Germany. I wonder why Schröder even agreed to this.
This profile sheds light on the his personaity and how Schröder was always and opennly in bed with Russians but nobody noticed or spoke against it. In this profile, its the answers that are more interesting than the Questions unlike the previous one. He sounds like almost like a paid lobbyist, its rare to see an ex-president of a major nation openly lobbying for another nation’s business interests.
And it starts with this -
In the interviews, Mr. Schröder, now 78, spoke with undiminished swagger, cracking jokes but arguing in essence that, well, if he got rich, then so did his country. When it came to Russian gas, everyone was on board, he pointed out, mocking his detractors over copious amounts of white wine.
And then continues
“They all went along with it for the last 30 years,” he said. “But suddenly everyone knows better.”
“I have always served German interests,” he added. “I do what I can do. At least one side trusts me.”
(NYTimes) That side is not the German side.
Highlights some interesting facts about Schröder’s current position
He relinquished his honorary citizenship in Hanover before his home city could strip it from him — something it last did, posthumously, to Adolf Hitler. When even the soccer club Borussia Dortmund, which Mr. Schröder has supported since he was 6, demanded a strong statement on Mr. Putin from him, Mr. Schröder canceled his membership.
Since 2017, he has also presided over the board of the Russian oil company Rosneft, earning another $600,000 a year, according to public records, on top of his monthly $9,000 government stipend as former chancellor.
Mr. Schröder’s entanglement with the Russian president and Kremlin-controlled energy companies overshadows all he achieved in seven years as chancellor, from 1998 to 2005, a pivotal period of leadership when he was lauded for refusing to join the United States in the Iraq war; giving immigrants a regular path to citizenship; and putting in place far-reaching labor market overhauls that would pave the way for a decade of growth under his successor, Angela Merkel.
That legacy has been permanently tainted.
And back to the interview
“Basically, since the 1960s, cooperation with the Soviet Union and later with Russia has been a constant,” Mr. Schröder said.
“They got the money and they delivered the gas,” Mr. Schröder said of the Russians. “Even in the toughest times of the Cold War, there were never any problems.”
and some funny anecdotes
During one of Mr. Schröder’s first visits with Mr. Putin in Moscow, the Russian president invited the chancellor to the sauna in his private residence outside Moscow and offered him a beer.
Mr. Schröder said that when the sauna suddenly caught fire, Mr. Putin tried to hurry him out, but he insisted on finishing his beer first.
The closeness between the two - Putin and Schröder
The two leaders hit it off, and not just because of their legendary macho bravado. Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. agent who had been based in Dresden, spoke fluent German and grew up poor, like Mr. Schröder, whose mother was a cleaner who brought up five children on her own.
He was tempted. On his 60th birthday, a year earlier, his biographer, Reinhard Urschel, had asked him what he wanted to do after leaving office. “Make money,” Mr. Schröder had replied.
Highlight the nexus of Russian lobbyists in Germany
According to the resulting report, from January 2015 to October 2017, there were 62 such meetings, including 20 with Mr. Gabriel and 10 with Mr. Steinmeier or his ambassadors in Brussels and Moscow.
Matthias Warnig, the chief executive of Nord Stream 2, who took part in 19 of the meetings in the report, has acknowledged having been a former spy of the Stasi, the former secret police of Communist East Germany. Stasi records show that, in February 1988, both he and Mr. Putin, when he was stationed in Dresden as a K.G.B. officer, were awarded medals for their service. But Mr. Warnig has denied reports that he had recruited spies for Mr. Putin in their old days.
And the threat from an ex-lobbyist
Mr. Steinmeier declined to be interviewed for this article. Mr. Gabriel texted to say he only met “representatives of Russia and Gazprom between 2014 and 2016” to “avert a looming supply stop of Russia to Ukraine.”
He added: “Should you put my visits and meetings in Russia in a different context, I want to inform you now that I will initiate legal steps.”
And Schröder’s closing remarks
“When this war is over,” Mr. Schröder said, “we will have to go back to dealing with Russia. We always do.”
Chanel bags as an Investment
If you thought that luxury bags are a waste of money, you’re wrong! Chanel has already raised the price of its classic bags by up to 60% and now in a bid to maintain exclusivity is planning to restrict purchases up to two bags per customer. Basically, they are saying that when everyone has a Chanel, then nobody has a “Chanel”. Besides that, Channel classic bags have been a good source of investments and with the current adjustments in price and supply, the value of the bags will continue to grow in the near future. Get yours now!
Billionaire Soap Opera - Twitter and Elon
Oh man, if anything, life is not boring for the world’s richest and most eccentric billionaire Elon Musk. This is as good as it gets.
Elon wakes up, opens his Twitter account, and instead of posting some random meme like everyday or making fun of people, he thinks that there is not enough free speech on Twitter and he would like to change that. And creates a poll about free speech on the platforms he says is biased. :slow clap:
Wonders if Twitter is even relevant and if we should create a new platform. This obviously sends Twitter stock stumbling since he is one of the biggest accounts/celebrities on Twitter.
Surprise surprise. Elon reveals a 9.2% (the legal amount you can buy without setting off the bells in the market) stake in Twitter, the platform he criticizes, and wanted to build a new platform. And then post a mocking tweet
Then he files for Form 13G which is for passive shareholders aka he doesn’t want to interfere in the platform and will watch from the sidelines
And then out of nowhere, with his newfound power of passive investing, he asks for an EDIT button
Some behind the scene action/power struggle and Twitter appoints Musk on the board on the condition that he wouldn’t buy more than 15% shares.
And then drama, Elon strikes again! He makes a public offer to buy Twitter
THEN he bullies the Twitter board to accept the offer
Openly attacked the management of Twitter - here is making fun of the Head Legal of Twitter implying that she is pro-left
Twitter board deploys self-defense by self-harm - Poison pill aka diluting the company shares so that others can buy except Elon
But then the Twitter board comes under pressure - accepts the offer. A win for Elon!
But wait, it doesn’t end there, he is soo happy that
But another day, Elon wakes up and finds a random filing about Fraud accounts from Twitter ( which they have been filing for the last 7 years) and says “Deal is on hold pending investigation” because he doesn’t like the report.
BUT there is nothing called Deal on hold in the buying contract. And every lawyer on the deal is FREAKING out. And the deal goes on.
The Twitter CEO tries to calm everyone down. And even offers a public explanation of how they calculate this number and most people find it logical and trustworthy
EXCEPT for our Elon. He responds to the long explanation thread with a -
But then he says that he is still committed to buying Twitter
But the public is fed up with his trolling and Twitter stock starts to decline and declines to a price lower than Elon bought it at and way lower at the $54.2
Efffectively, public markets say that they don’t have trust in Elon and his deal to conclude and value the company a lot LOWER than what Elon is willing to pay for it.
That’s Season 1 folks.
Who needs Kardashians when you have Elon!
That’s all folks.
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