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Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

wsj.com

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Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#21

Post by donjoe »

chki wrote: post #16
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Also, under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business leaving the country's internet behind Ukraine or Belarus.[1] If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insa…

>If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insanely corrupt the German government and their corporate buddies are. This is obviously not true. There have been numerous uncovered political scandals in Germany that have led to politicians and managers loosing their job. Christian Wulff (Former German President), Guttenberg (f…

It seems like a couple of years ago, once you fucked up, you resigned out of respect to your office/job/position.

Looking at our current Minister of Transport 'Andi Scheuer', this does not seem to be the case any more. He is still in office after burning more than € 500M in the recent toll scandal [0].

[0]: https://www.dw.com/en/german-transport-minister-blasted-over...

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#22

Post by calpaterson »

Sadly can't read the article as I don't have a subscription but have followed this in the FT.

Germany has an ultra-protectionist political culture for pet German companies. Wirecard was one such pet company but there are many others who have benefited from implicit state support in the form of lowered standards and private favouritism: Deutsche, VW, Siemens, etc. Wirecard even holds a banking license so should be subject to quite a lot of oversight from the regulator but the head of BaFin ("Germany's SEC" as the headline states) makes the risible excuse that he didn't apply proper oversight to them because they are arguably a "technology company".

Disappointingly there is very little doing. The pan-EU regulator, ESMA, basically is not equipped to properly investigate and censure BaFin - they're really just a standards body similar to the IETF or ANSI. No I can't imagine much will change.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#23

Post by kome »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Also, under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business leaving the country's internet behind Ukraine or Belarus.[1] If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insa…

> If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insanely corrupt the German government and their corporate buddies are.

Trust me, we know.

I speak for central/eastern Europe: where Deutsche Telekom has a big market share you can bet they formed a cartel and the prices for phones are higher than in western Europe.

(edit) Also: basically nothing of relevance happened in Europe after Volkswagen diesel scandal... I wonder why.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#24

Post by chii »

solstice wrote: post #9
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

Germany also did not aggressively investigate Volkswagen for the emissions scandal. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-volkswagen-emissions-germ...

The state government of lower Saxony (the state where VW is based) owns 25% of VW. I don't think that's a coincidence. Edit: looks like it's 20%

how can a company be both owned by, but also regulated by "the same" entity? that is a conflict of interest aint it?

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#25

Post by hetspookjee »

netsharc wrote: post #14
fab1an wrote: post #10

The denial here was pretty strong, as Wirecard was one of the few success stories of a German technology company rising into the DAX that _wasn't_ founded over 80 years ago. Sadly, this may only fuel skepticism towards tech further instead of causing the possibly necessary reforms.

[__REDACTED__]

Op was speaking in the past tense and implied that it's _not_ a succes story because of the fraud and lies. So I'm guessing you're being downvoted for overseeing that part.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#26

Post by maze-le »

> Sure, it's not like Russia or the CCP and you're not in danger of being suicided if you uncover some high level dirt

You are not going to get disappered, but you are in danger of getting a fraudulent "psychiatric diagnosis" if you are a tax investigator uncovering dirt about some politicians or their cronies.[0][1] In this case the investigator got free, but I am sure there are some cases out there of people who didn't got as much publicity. Consequences for the people that instigated this? None! Nothig to see here, move on... And the so called "Psychiatrist" is still free, and had to pay a meagre 200000 in damages.

> lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insanely corrupt the German government and their corporate buddies are

That is so true, I always cringe when people use Germany as an example of a society that doesn't have a lot of corruption -- we have, it's just buried under lots and lots of red tape...

[0]: https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/psychiater-muss-s...

[1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steuerfahnder-Aff%C3%A4re

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#27

Post by qayxc »

netsharc wrote: post #13

Also, some people praise the German government for being able to manage an economic powerhouse, but hey, if you keep your currency relatively low to others (by having them all pegged, or even better, replaced with a single currency), of course your production costs stay cheap. But at what cost to your neighbors? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/26/german... https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/magazin…

Not only is your comment completely unrelated to the issue at hand, but your references are as well.

The slightly one-sided (who would've guessed from UK publication) Guardian article simply ignores the internal issues that the southern European countries have carried around for decades and doesn't even mention the success of the Baltic states (I wonder why).

The NYT article, aside from being 9 years old and written in the context of the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, didn't age well either - especially regarding its prime subject Ireland...

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#28

Post by juskrey »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Also, under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business leaving the country's internet behind Ukraine or Belarus.[1] If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insa…

Internet in Ukraine and Belarus was not built in centralized manner, but quite naturally, and in competitive environment. Reasonably most places ended up with fiber where it was possible. Monopolist telecoms were not prepared and were overpowered by enthusiasts overcoming communication obstacles in any imaginable way, including legal quirks and vacuum at that time.

Nothing good can be expected when central gotv starts to "innovate".

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#29

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

chki wrote: post #16
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Also, under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business leaving the country's internet behind Ukraine or Belarus.[1] If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insa…

>If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insanely corrupt the German government and their corporate buddies are. This is obviously not true. There have been numerous uncovered political scandals in Germany that have led to politicians and managers loosing their job. Christian Wulff (Former German President), Guttenberg (f…

Guttenberg had to resign because his doctoral thesis was full of plagiarism. Even the introduction was plagiarized - but with small changes that made it clear that an attempt had been made to hide the plagiarism.

Guttenberg's public image rested on the idea that he was a morally upright, well composed, competent businessman, along with his noble lineage and family castle. The revelations about his thesis destroyed his credibility.

This is rather different from financial corruption of the sort hinted at in this article.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#30

Post by lordnacho »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Also, under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business leaving the country's internet behind Ukraine or Belarus.[1] If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insa…

The big corruption study that comes out each year is actually a corruption perceptions list. So basically how good is your PR.
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