Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 34 2024

Good morning, I'm still angry, even though three days have passed since the coalition parties agreed on the German budget for 2025. No, it is not the lack of respect for culture, which is also hidden in this, that is causing my anger, but the address of devotion to the Russian genocidist and aggressor, which is probably based in the chancellery: Look, we will make a calculable reduction in the next two years - and then you are welcome to come to us, because we are not capable of defending ourselves. The images of civilians who had to go to the front within a very short time, without a uniform, without training in military matters, without proper weapons... were quickly forgotten. They resisted the most brutal aggressors for so long until a little help finally arrived. From Germany, there were initially 5,000 helmets! At the moment, there are defence systems, but they can only be used in the territory of Ukraine. How stupid is that. The Russian border is just 30 kilometres away from Charkiw! Missiles travel at the speed of sound – how can you defend yourself if you are not allowed to harass the enemy in the hinterland? Scholz and his backers in the Chancellery would rather spend around 1 billion on this (and create more jobs for citizens to pay for) than effectively cut back on the bureaucracy and the regulatory frenzy of public employees of any gender in Europe. After all, these positions are suitable places to provide for useful party people. Tired of democracy? Yes, precisely because of so much opportunism in party politics everywhere.
Otherwise, Stefan Kobel has compiled a lot of information on art market reporting in the last week. In the insurance industry, business is as usual, car insurance premiums will rise because the industry made a loss of 2.5 billion last year (the equivalent of 2.5 - 3 Chancellery extensions, sounds more harmless), the industry is again thinking more about captives - i.e. more intelligent self-insurance models - and AI is supposed to fix it for one or the other, whereby some things are sold as AI that would normally pass as an IT solution. But AI is such a nice whisk, it can be used to whip up a lot of foam...

What is more important now are signals that would give the consumer goods industry hope again. Thanks to an ideologically one-sided economic policy, fewer jobs are being created than are being lost as a result of these measures. The Greens are better at this than the socialist-leaning former SPD members, whose expropriation fantasies were stopped by the real socialism in the GDR. The GDR is no more - and what is coming now is no longer rationally comprehensible, but that is probably where the key lies.
A good and strong week to all those returning from holiday - and to those who still have time to relax, gather strength for what is to come
Stephan Zilkens and the team at Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH in Solothurn and Cologne