Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard
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Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard
#62Also, 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…
My impression is that during the formative decades of West German power structures (let's say late Adenauer to early Kohl), the entire surrounding culture of media, regulators and of course politicians and business people themselves, failed to develop an awareness for corruption because everything was so nicely self-regulated by what basically boils down to modesty. In terms of anti-corruption measures it was like that nice village where nobody locks their front door. Now decades of neoliberal ideology have swept away that modesty, greed has slowly shifted from vice to virtue, but the trust is still there. Now working as a deceptive national brand that is quickly crumbling away, without a replacement (reliable countermeasures) in sight.
Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
This would hold true for any government owned entity...
In practice, the 'same entity' are very different people in government with different mandates.
Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard
#64Also, 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…
All western countries are corrupt. The difference from the usual suspects is the way it's done. If in Russia, it may be as simple as cash in hand, in Germany or Britain it will be kids placement into a nice job, maybe a donation to a family run charity org, or a contract to friend's friend's construction company. Or even the good old one,where you do a favour and 5-7 years later, once not in government position anymo…
You're being downvoted because network effects aren't the same as corruption. Although it is certainly unpleasant to consider that government officials might be making decisions more favorable to one company than another in the hope or expectation that that they will get a board seat five years hence, it is worth noting that if they upset one company now, they may get the board seat on the other company. And since anything can happen in five years, it may in many cases make better sense to make the right decision, rather than the self-interested decision. Moreover, quite independent of any decisions they make, they remain valuable since they have contacts and know government processes.
So cash in hand is a bazillion times worse than a board seat.
Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard
#65Also, 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…
Most corruption stats that I have seen are based on perception of corruption. If people perceive it as dodgy but legal, or if people view it as the odd bad egg, then it won't affect perceptions, no matter how rife it is. If it doesn't affect perceptions, it doesn't affect measures.
There’s a really great documentary about how criminals used the disconnect between perception of corruption and actual corruption in Vatican City to launder money for decades. (And still do, really.) The name of the movie escapes me but I’m commenting in hopes that someone here will know.
Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Most of the comments here are about German government corruption and incompetence. The articles maybe old but the facts still haven't changed; the Euro was a bad thing (yeah, yeah, citation needed). I disagree with your insinuation that a UK publication must be against the Euro (such a cheap conclusion!), the Guardian does lean towards the left, but it is also a pro EU.
> Most of the comments here are about German government corruption and incompetence.
Yet neither is addressed by the articles you linked. If illustrating corruption or incompetence was your intend, then you simply missed the mark with those articles.
There's suitable, prominent and recent examples for both, but "Euro bad" definitely isn't one of them.
Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard
#67Also, 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…
Even though losing the job is not a punishment, not everyone even lost his job.
Andreas Sheuer is still in charge of transport as a federal Minister, despite the 500,000,000 € heavy corruption scandal.
Von der Leyen got even "promoted" to EU-lead position after heavy corruption scandal last year when she was a Defense Minister of Germany.
Not only Germany, but in the whole EU commission leadership it would be hard to find someone without corruption scandal, accusation or conviction.
Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard
#68Softbank invested $1 billion in Wirecard just under a year ago. Son isn't having a good time around these times.
Actually it did not - SoftBank employees contributed into a special purpose fund created for this investment, and that fund bought a convertible bond issued by Wirecard.
Although it has been reported as a "SoftBank investment", it's pretty clear that no SoftBank money was part of the deal.
Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
Being Spanish yet having lived in Germany for quite some time, I agree with you... I'm not saying there's no corruption in Germany - I think there's always going to be some level corruption at a certain scale of state - but there's no need to go as far as China or Russia for comparison. Just come to the South of Europe for a taste of what grand-scale corruption in what are otherwise (seemingly) high-functioning democ…
The issue is people are just not aware on the corruption in Germany because there's no "personal" and "everyday" corruption in a daily life.
But if you look "up" the amount of corruption rise to the astonishing levels. Just remember Stuttgart 21 or the Berlin Airport, Hamburg Elb Philharmonic, Battleship Gorch Fock. Germany is full of such corrupt projects, it's obvious and everyone knows about it, but nobody yet went to jail because of it.
Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard
#70> 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 di…
The affair you're talking about happened more than a decade ago, it was a major and pretty unique scandal in Germany, and the "expert" has been convicted not only to pay damages, but was also found to be guilty of malpractice. The state eventually offered the investigators to be re-hired.
There were no consequences for the "instigators" because, to my understanding, it couldn't be proven that there was criminal intent.
The events got plenty of media attention and high-ranking officials and judges denounced the actions of the agency.
No country is safe from corruption, but this story certainly doesn't support the notion of the country being corrupt, much less "insanely corrupt".