Programming Note

Eastern Germany is driving the bus.

---

1. PROGRAMMING NOTE:

---

News Items will NOT be distributed today (8/31) or tomorrow (9/1). We will be back on Monday (9/2) with a relatively brief note, largely devoted to the election results from Saxony and Thuringia in (eastern) Germany. The regular schedule resumes on Tuesday, 3 September.

---

The election results from Saxony and Thuringia (and, on 22 September, from Brandenburg) are important, as they will likely signal the further unraveling of Germany’s post-World War II “political model” which is occurring simultaneously with the unraveling of the German “business model”. A one-two punch of that magnitude reverberates across Germany, the EU and the “Western alliance”, calling into question long-held, seemingly unshakable assumptions.

Two especially interested parties in Sunday’s (and 22 September’s) election results are Ukraine and Russia. The former will likely be more vulnerable after the votes are counted; the latter more emboldened.