> Eugene Coyle wrote: > > http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/germany-s-rethink-on-just-where-the-blame-lies-for-the-irish-bank-bailout-1.1339854?utm_source=morning-digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digests
The first two paragraphs of this article > On a dismal Tuesday night, 600 Berliners have braved the snow > and a bitter, Siberian wind to fill the Deutsches Theater. > Six bankers prowl the stage, explaining the shadowy world of > derivatives, moral hazard and subprime mortgages. > Welcome to “The Raspberry Reich”. Based on 20 anonymised > interviews with German bankers, playwright Andres Veiel has > condensed their testimony into a corrosive portrait of bankers > who earn vast profits selling baffling financial products with > incalculable risks. illustrated: http://www.deutschestheater.de/spielplan/spielplan/das_himbeerreich/bilder/ http://www.deutschestheater.de/spielplan/spielplan/das_himbeerreich/ I think the main message of the Irish Times article - as far as German party politics and the run-up to the Bundestag elections in September 2013 is concerned - is summarized in these paragraphs: [...] "The Raspberry Reich” tells of a crisis meeting in the late 1990s when all major German bank directors were summoned to Berlin to meet the financial regulator. “We were read the riot act,” one banker told Andres Veiel. “Germany was increasingly falling behind London and New York as a financial centre. We should get with it, get into more risk, expand the derivatives and structured finance products, finally get modern.” To encourage the internationalisation of German banks, allowing them to tap the highly profitable market for securitised products, Germany’s Schröder administration began a process of bank deregulation continued by the first Merkel government. The 2005 programme for government of the Christian Democrat (CDU)– Social Democrat (SPD) grand coalition says that “product innovations” on financial markets “are to be supported emphatically”. [...] Mr Peer Steinbrück, the Social Democrat (SPD) lead candidate in the September [2013] election, headed the Berlin finance ministry when Germany deregulated its banks and Ireland announced its bank guarantee. A spokesman said he had “no interest” in an interview. His former deputy, Jörg Asmussen, also declined to be interviewed. In his current role at the ECB, a bank spokesperson said, he preferred not to be interviewed on topics relating to his previous role. Many former colleagues in Berlin are critical of Mr Asmussen’s role in banking deregulation. In a speech last week in Berlin, Mr Asmussen said the euro zone crisis was “no natural disaster, but a consequence of incorrect political decisions and regulatory deficits”. [...] On a good day, senior government politicians in Berlin admit that bailing out Ireland was crucial to propping up German banks and pension funds. Neither of the main political parties vying for power in September are interested in a public discussion of whether German banks, insurance companies or pensions – with assistance from politicians – played a role in the wider euro zone crisis. There are few exceptions in Berlin: Sahra Wagenknecht, MP with the opposition Left Party is a staunch critic of the Irish bailout. “To this day many people in Germany believe, wrongly, that rescue plans assist the populations in each respective country, paid for by German taxpayers,” she said. “Things are the other way around: the Irish population will probably have to spend decades bleeding for the speculation of German banks.” Investigative journalist Harald Schumann spent months touring Europe, joining the dots between one countries’ debts and another’s liabilities, and highlighting the inconsistencies in a German crisis narrative in which blame lies solely with crisis countries. Mr Schumann suspects Angela Merkel’s selective crisis framing is no coincidence, but a carefully calibrated political message to ensure her continued popularity – even if it is at a risk of undermining long-term European solidarity. [...] _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
