Over the past few days, the following topics attracted our attention:
The European Union Wants to Burden Europeans With New Taxes
Volkswagen to Cut 100,000 Jobs by the End of the Decade
COVID: Pfizer and the CIA Already Referred to Herd Immunity as Early as 2020
The European Union Wants to Burden Europeans With New Taxes
On Wednesday, European Council President António Costa warned governments that the situation would worsen if Member States failed to agree on new EU-wide taxes to fund the Union’s next seven-year budget. The European Commission has previously proposed taxes on carbon imports, emissions, uncollected electronic waste, corporate profits and tobacco products, reports Politico.
Costa urged Member States to soften their positions ahead of the 15 October summit, where he intends to narrow down potential taxes. “Our priority is to try to finalise the basket of new own resources as early as October,” he said, so that it becomes clear how much needs to be collected from each Member State. But the issue of EU-wide taxes remains one of the most complex, as countries are reluctant to grant the Commission greater taxing powers or to accept new levies that would hit some states harder than others. An agreement on these “own resources” is still needed now to make an overall budget deal easier in December, before the 2027 elections in France, Spain and Italy risk complicating negotiations.
According to the Commission’s proposal last year, five new taxes were envisaged, totalling €66 billion per year. These covered carbon imports, emissions, uncollected electronic waste, corporate profits and tobacco products. Most have met resistance from governments, and any new tax requires unanimous approval. On Wednesday, for example, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Luc Frieden rejected a potential EU tobacco tax, saying it would disproportionately affect Luxembourg.
Costa warned that failure to agree on new taxes would lead to either budget cuts or higher national contributions. “We have only two ways: reduce our ambitions on security, defence, competitiveness, cohesion and agriculture … or increase national contributions, which is also a problem for all Member States,” he explained.
Neither option would please the camps. Northern countries, led by Germany, already complain that their contributions are too high. Southern and eastern countries, by contrast, demand more EU funds for agriculture and regional development.
European ministers will discuss the new taxes on 22 September in Brussels.
Volkswagen to Cut 100,000 Jobs by the End of the Decade
German carmaker Volkswagen announced on Thursday that it will cut a total of 100,000 jobs by the end of the decade – an additional 50,000 on top of the 50,000 previously announced. Management and the trade unions have already agreed on the plan. The company says it urgently needs to “systematically align workforce levels with economic realities”, reports Deutsche Welle.
The Volkswagen Group (which includes Audi and Porsche) says the 100,000 redundancies account for roughly 15 per cent of its total worldwide workforce. In addition, Volkswagen stated it cannot guarantee the long-term future of four major plants in Germany: Hanover, Emden, Zwickau and Neckarsulm.
VW CEO Oliver Blume said the decision sends “a strong signal for the future of the Volkswagen Group”. The plan also includes a restructuring programme aimed at faster decision-making and cutting the number of subsidiaries and shareholdings by about one-third. Multi-billion-euro investments in research and development are planned to boost competitiveness.
VW has not yet published details of the redundancy timetable or the regional breakdown. But the company has said it will focus more on North America and aims to expand exports to the Global South.
VW has struggled for some time. The the climate transition to switch to electric cars has been costly and EV sales remain sluggish and demand is growing slowly. Although this commitment has been somewhat relaxed, VW’s overall sales remain weak. Added pressure comes from US tariffs and fierce competition from China.
COVID: Pfizer and the CIA Already Referred to Herd Immunity as Early as 2020
Senator Rand Paul has published new documents concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. These include the minutes of a CIA meeting on 7 May 2020. At that meeting, CIA Chief Operating Officer Andy Makridis and Dr Scott Gottlieb – former FDA Chair and then a Pfizer board member – discussed herd immunity to the coronavirus, writes the Brownstone Institute.
The report states: “On ‘herd immunity’, Dr Gottlieb dismisses the two major studies from Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties showing high seroprevalence. He believes that nationally, seroprevalence is around 20–25 per cent, which is insufficient for herd immunity at an R₀ (BRR) value of 3.”
It is worth noting that as early as April 2020, Dr Jay Bhattacharya had published a study identifying a seroprevalence rate of 2.8 per cent. This was much higher than estimates given at the time. Bhattacharya was later condemned, hounded and discredited for speaking out about a ‘forbidden’ truth. He explained that the coronavirus mortality rate was very low and its prevalence very high, concluding that the pandemic could be overcome without major disruption.
A document has now come to light in which Gottlieb, then a Pfizer board member, told the CIA that the virus was spreading much faster than expected and that every infected person infects three more. This would essentially have meant 67 per cent herd immunity. Given such rapid spread and the resulting immunity, the pandemic would have become endemic within a few weeks if everything else had remained the same.
Publicly, however, Gottlieb said the opposite. On 17 April 2020, he wrote on Twitter that the national infection rate was 5 per cent. A few months later, he reported that national seroprevalence was only 8 per cent – meaning that by April 2020 only a few people had been exposed, with isolated exceptions such as Arizona, where Gottlieb estimated the figure may have been closer to 15-25 per cent.
In any case, the CIA document shows that Gottlieb and the CIA privately believed as early as May 2020 that the virus was spreading rapidly and extensively, that the mortality rate was fairly low, and that herd immunity would be achieved quickly. This information was kept secret for six years until Senator Rand Paul disclosed it in August 2026.
Treasonous:
"the CIA document shows that Gottlieb and the CIA privately believed as early as May 2020 that the virus was spreading rapidly and extensively, that the mortality rate was fairly low, and that herd immunity would be achieved quickly. This information was kept secret for six years until Senator Rand Paul disclosed it in August 2026."