Just two weeks after the French government made headlines for ousting its prime minister, the land of schnitzel is saying, “Hold my lager.” With the country’s economy stalling out, the German Parliament voted yesterday to boot Chancellor Olaf Scholz from his prime minister-like post as head of government…

…just like he planned. Scholz, who has been chancellor since 2021, was under pressure to initiate the no-confidence vote so that new elections could take place ASAP. His three-prong ruling coalition lost its majority last month when the pro-business party bailed after a year of squabbles with the other two—the Green party and Scholz’s Social Democrats—over who was the best singer policies like immigration and debt.

The new chancellor is set to be elected in February, seven months early, so the race is on to win over financially weary voters. Scholz will steer the ship until then.

Das struggle bus

Europe’s largest economy is in its second straight year of flat economic growth, and unemployment is at a four-year high of 6.1%. In the past few years:

• Industrial production has dipped 20% from a peak in 2017, the “steepest decline” since the end of WWII, according to Deutsche Bank Research.
• Energy prices jumped as much as 40% after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and cut off gas exports to Germany (formerly the Kremlin’s biggest gas customer).

Germany’s bread and butter—auto and manufacturing—are hurting:

• Volkswagen announced plans in October to shutter three German factories, lay off tens of thousands of workers, and institute 10% pay cuts.
• Then, the nation’s largest steelmaker, ThyssenKrupp, posted $1.5 billion in losses over the previous year as it struggled to decarbonize amid higher costs of powering its factories.
• Last month, Germany’s biggest auto parts supplier, Bosch, announced 5,500 job cuts starting in 2027.

It could get worse: Germany’s economy will “probably suffer considerably” if President-elect Donald Trump follows through with blanket tariffs, according to Germany’s central bank. Germany exported more than $160 billion worth of goods to the US last year, including heavily US-integrated products like Mercedes-Benz autos and pharmaceuticals, according to the New York Times.—ML

Bernie Sanders said Amazon is not being forthright about its worker injury rates. On Sunday, a Senate committee that Sen. Sanders leads released a report suggesting that Amazon is fudging numbers to make its warehouse injuries rate appear better than it really is. The committee reported that only 40% of Amazon’s US warehouses have 1,000 employees or more, but in labor safety reports, it compares all of its warehouses to the metric for that subcategory. The committee postulated that it’s because larger warehouses have higher rates of injury, and Amazon’s average injury rate looks better next to that subcategory’s than the overall warehousing industry’s average, which is lower. In a statement responding to the report, Amazon said the analysis is “fundamentally flawed” and that “putting ourselves in a different category would be misleading.”

Trump considers privatizing the US Postal Service. The Washington Post reported that the president-elect has been asking his close associates for their opinions on ending government subsidies for the agency. In his first term, Trump tussled with the USPS and tried to get it to hand personnel decisions and rate-setting powers to the Treasury Dept. (which it did not). Now, the post office could be a prime target for the incoming administration’s DOGE cost-cutting effort. Advocates fear that without the postal service’s “universal service” obligation, which means it must provide delivery to people regardless of the profitability of doing so, rural and remote communities will be impacted and that small businesses will suffer without the ability to send parcels at USPS rates, which are often cheaper than other carriers.

At least three people killed after Wisconsin school shooting. The death toll includes at least one teacher and the shooter—who was identified only as a 15-year-old female student. The perpetrator opened fire in “one space” at the Abundant Life Christian School yesterday morning, according to officials. The K-12 facility, located in the state’s capital, is nondenominational and has about 390 students, according to the Associated Press. Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said law enforcement is “working hard to find as many answers as we can.”—HVL

SoftBank plans to aim its prolific cash cannon stateside during Donald Trump’s term in the White House.

The CEO of the Japanese tech investment behemoth, Masayoshi Son, met with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago yesterday. He promised to plug American companies with at least $100 billion to create 100,000 jobs in AI and emerging tech over the next four years.

SoftBank buys red, white, and blue

The daredevil investment company, known for its risky bets on startups with the word “disrupt” in their pitch decks, set a similar goal when Trump won in 2016, pledging to invest $50 billion in the US economy and create 50,000 jobs at that time. The company kept the promise, though according to Axios, almost half of the funds went to WeWork, the namesake of our “Flop of the Year” award.

SoftBank has recently been more risk-averse, but Son is reportedly bullish on AI, and the bulk of his US investments will likely focus on related infrastructure like data centers and chips, per the Wall Street Journal.

Big picture: Though it’s already been investing in American AI, SoftBank’s announcement plays into Trump’s promise to usher in an economic bonanza. Last week, he said any company investing $1 billion or more into the US can count on expedited permitting.—SK

One week after merch for the alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect flooded the internet, sympathy for him has generated several online fundraisers for his legal fees.

GoFundMe has shut down multiple fundraisers that claimed to be raising money for Luigi Mangione’s legal fees, as the platform said its terms of service “prohibit fundraisers for the legal defense of violent crimes.” The platform refunded all donors.

But…that hasn’t stopped the flow of money—it’s just gone elsewhere. GiveSendGo, a Christian platform similar to GoFundMe, is letting fundraisers for Mangione stay up.

• One of the “legal funds,” which is a “trending campaign” on GiveSendGo’s homepage, raised over $135,000 as of Monday night.
• GiveSendGo defended hosting the campaigns, saying people (including Mangione) have a “constitutional right to a strong legal defense.”

The platform has come under fire in the past for other legal defense fundraisers, including for Kyle Rittenhouse and for individuals allegedly involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol.

There’s more: Some companies are making sympathy for the suspect a part of their marketing. A handful of businesses, ranging from a professional DJ service to a video game store, have posted fake “alibis” for Mangione.—CC

Depending on your predilections for forced fun and free alcohol, this may be good or bad news: A new Harris poll of 1,238 employed adults found that only 48% of employers offer regular, annual, in-person holiday parties (although 64% of employers told Challenger, Gray & Christmas they are holding parties this year…maybe 16% of employees didn’t check their spam folder). Changing drinking preferences may have something to do with it.

The Harris poll found that 42% of Gen Z workers surveyed would prefer no alcohol or a moderate amount at a holiday work party, compared to 35% of all workers surveyed. Gen Z and millennial workers would rather have a themed or interactive party, like a trip to an escape room. Pour one out for alcohol, the original holiday party escape.—HVL