Hello!
Yes, if you haven't guessed, this is a thread joining in in the recent series of complaint threads here and the topic are bankers and carmakers.
The thing is, hearing what is going on around the world and here in Germany, I can only say that some bankers and some managers in the car industry deserve being called "scumbags".
Okay, here is the deal:
Those investment bankers played roulette with international fonds, not even knowing what they were doing themselves, but getting big boni as long as things worked out. Now, the bubble has burst, their banks are going bankrupt and are dragging other banks, firms, even nations along down the drain causing massive damage as a direct consequence of their irresponsible behavior.
I have seen the queries in the US on TV, and it was nice to see at least some CEOs who had the guts to say "Until we got the bank out of the trouble, I won't take boni or a regular salary". Now, turning back to Germany, we have the investment bankers, yes, the very people to blame for the trouble we are in, say "We still haven't gotten our boni from 2008. If you don't pay us that money we earned, we will go to court!"
Do they have any sense of how miserable they have made the life for thousands of people already? And talking about "having earned" the boni is really absurd. If your average worker breaks a machine in a factory, I don't think they pay him extra for his great deed.
And the carmakers in Germany have overlooked the writing on the wall for years. They were heading for a crisis even without the bank crisis because they continued producing cars that never had a future and were not wanted by the consumer. Now, they are using the crisis as an excuse to get money from the state.
And talking about sueing, there are also the shareholders of the HRE bank. Germany has blown already billions of Euros into that bank. In fact, we have already put several times the value of the bank into it, but thus far, Germany has not claimed sufficient rights to influence on the bank. Now, as the HRE is asking again for even more money, the government is preparing to claim the bank, paying out the shareholders. Consequently, the shareholders now want to sue against that possibility.
In the 70s, the German government said "We will not be blackmailed!", and I have come to the point where I say they should say this again and let the HRE shareholders rot. If they don't want the government money, don't give it to them. Then they can use their shares for toilet paper once the HRE bank goes down the drain. I think risking whatever domino effect the HRE bank may have is better than blowing more and more government money into a firm so that a few obviously incompetent people can just get more and more profit.
Sorry about the harshness, but I am really annoyed at all this.
Deathworks