|
|
Germany is heading to the polls this Sunday. In retrospect, people will look at Olaf Scholz and his Chancellorship as a "big misunderstanding" and a "gigantic waste of time". His lack of leadership and upside-down self-image is symbolic for politicians of all parties, in Berlin and Brussels, having lost touch with reality. The lack of real leadership manifests itself in the inability to tell people "hard truths" (times are changing, we can´t continue like in the past) and to implement urgently needed reforms in light of unfavourable demographics, collapsing productivity and climate change. People (=voters) are not stupid. They sense the economic decline (i.e. unemployment at Covid levels, see chart below) due to the lack of reforms. They experience that government can no longer deliver on its implicit promisses (housing, pension, energy, job security, education, health system, infrastructure, internal and external security, etc) and is breaking the "social contract". Meanwhile, burocracy (and in parts a de-growth mindset) is suffocating any animal spirits and self-initiative. All in all, the pie is shrinking. After the 2022 inflation shock, for the poor this has already become existential. For the middle-class the "value-for-money equation" (what you get in return for your taxes) has become a vastly "negative-sum game", with real fear of economic decline (job loss). The ultra-rich don´t pay enough taxes and live in a parallel universe. Few people who vote extremist parties (AfD, BSW or Linke) are racists or socialist. They are simply afraid of the future. Because politics isn´t adressing the real and obvious problems, but instead is tangled up in "mock battles" (migration, gender, political correctness) and "party infighting". Our leaders simply don´t make the hard but necessary decisions. This has now been the case for more than a decade. In some cases (pension system) for more than 3 decades. It´s very similar in the rest of Europe incl. UK. In some countries the extremists are already in government. Without honesty, real leadership and reforms, we will all get "Trump" sooner, rather than later. People complain that we´re powerless against Putin, Trump, China. That´s right. We are powerless. Because we´re afraid to confront our problems.  
The performance of the DAX and MDAX index have diverged since September 2022, with the former gaining over 75% vs. only 15% for the latter. Over 40% of the DAX's return in the period, however, is due to SAP and Siemens. So the "German Doom" is priced into the MDAX and SDAX not the DAX.
 Is asset management a "commoditized business" with melting margins ? Phil Bak thinks the only way to counter this is "Authenticity" (see below)
|
|
Conor Mac is looking at the role of Timing in investing (see article above) Toya is a Polish "Mini-Einhell" (EUR 130mio Mcap) with strong fundamentals and an owner-operator set-up (see SmallValue article below) The Borlaug Report has a good intro to the pharma packaging sector (see article below)
|
|
|
|
<
| |
