Lectures for asset managers: Wagenknecht’s lucrative business with the “super rich”

Switzerland, October 2022. More than 150 guests have gathered in a conference room. Swiss Rock Asset Management, which, according to its own statements, invests the assets of “institutional and wealthy private clients”, has invited.

The “investment symposium” is about performance on the Swiss stock market or investing in bonds. The main speaker doesn’t really seem to fit this audience.

At the invitation of Swiss Rock, Left Party Member of Parliament Sahra Wagenknecht gave a keynote speech to the invited guests. Her topic: “Left-wing liberalism and the departure of liberal society”.

The asset managers from Zurich pay very well: Wagenknecht gets 10,000 euros gross for their appearance. This emerges from the information published by the Bundestag on Wagenknecht’s sideline activities.

With the asset managers from Zurich, the representative of a party is appearing who has declared war on those “super rich” who also like to invest their money in Switzerland.

The left not only demands a wealth tax, but also a levy on assets worth millions. “We want to ask the super-rich and those who are profiting from the crisis to pay up,” said party leader Janine Wissler before the 2021 federal election. If the Left Party had its way, millionaires would have to give up at least ten percent of their wealth.

It is not the only appearance of this kind with which the left-wing politician earned a lot of money. Since the beginning of the current legislative period, the MP has reported four other appearances to the Bundestag, all for Swiss clients. At Entrepreneur Day 2021, she discussed the question of whether the tech giants are abusing their market power.

According to the organizers, it is “one of the most popular events in the venture capital and private equity scene in Europe”. The Entrepreneur Day took place in an “exclusive resort on Lake Tegernsee”. The member of the Bundestag received EUR 14,280 gross for her appearance in a panel discussion.

Wagenknecht performs in an “exclusive resort on Lake Tegernsee”.

In 2021, she gave a lecture at the Swiss Institute for International Research on why “more cohesion and community spirit” were needed (10,000 euros). At the “Efficiency Club” in Zurich, she took part in an economic symposium in 2022 (around 4,000 euros). This year she attended a “Salon-Evening” in Zurich for the magazine “Schweizer Montag” (around 10,000 euros).

However, these amounts are nothing compared to the income that Wagenknecht was able to book for herself as the author of the book “The Self-Righteous”. Her publisher paid her more than 720,000 euros for the bestseller. The book, which was published in 2021, had weighed on her party’s federal election campaign.

In it, Wagenknecht speaks of “lifestyle leftists” who, from their point of view, are more interested in identity politics than in social justice, and settles accounts with their party. In the book, she also draws negatively on “left-wing liberalism” – she also spoke about it at the Swiss asset managers.

Left boss Wissler criticizes Wagenknecht’s additional income

The details about the additional income that have now become known are likely to intensify the conflict within the party about Wagenknecht. “When members of parliament have tens of thousands of extra earnings and even take money from the Swiss financial industry, plus well-paid podiums and lectures in business, that’s a problem.” said the left chairwoman Janine Wissler of the Funke media group. Members of the Bundestag should do their work in Parliament, in the committees and in the constituency.

But Wagenknecht has been absent from many roll-call votes in the Bundestag for years. She is not a regular member of any of the committees. Even when parliament recently discussed ways to bring about peace in Ukraine at the request of her group, the prominent member of parliament was not present.

Wagenknecht recently let it be known that she wants to decide on founding a new party by the end of the year. Co-party leader Martin Schirdewan was therefore “pissed off” and called her behavior “damaging to the party”.

Wagenknecht must either distance itself from the idea of ​​a rival party on the left or draw consequences. However, it is highly unlikely that Wagenknecht will resign.

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