Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 350 posts

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

#271

Post by maest »

jariel wrote: post #264
papito wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be that way. Right now in the United States, the level of corruption that we see is absolutely off the charts and out in the open. It's akin to a strange alien weapon for most Americans, that goes off near you, putting you in a state of trance, and you don't even know what's happening. There is brazenness and blatancy to it, as in "yeah, I did it, what are YOU going to do about it?" In many other countries…

No, it's not that bad in America. The corruption we see in DE is similar to that of US and even Canada - and it's of a different kinds. It's not corruption in the classical sense, it actually is rational for the state to prefer copper, if the state has investments in copper - in a kind of perverse way. Less rational and borderline corruption if an individual state actor has personal investments in copper. 'Big Busine…

I think the issues you've enumerated are actually different types of corruption (or not corruption at all)

A country preferring copper internet because they have large stocks of copper (which makes the project cheaper) is arguably the right thing to do. If it turns out it's a bad decision in the long run (because the negative impact of slow internet outweighs the savings brought by the cheap copper), that's just a bad investment. At worst, it's a mismanaged government.

An individual doing something to gain personal benefits (i.e. Cheney) is more regular, high level-corruption.

Somewhere in between the two, you get regulatory capture.

Then you have things like Old Boys' Clubs where you can't get hired in high-paying jobs unless you went to school with the right people. I'd call that an unequal society.

These are different types of problems which require radically different solutions.

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

#272

Post by allendoerfer »

fluffything wrote: post #191
allendoerfer wrote: post #119

I would like to see EY pay for the whole thing (since they were paid to check the books, which they obviously didn't). Also a big tree of associates and their superiors from BaFIN, Wirecard, EY, KPMG, etc. (maybe also some institutional investors, who are supposed to do due dilligence) getting fired and prosecuted for defrauding and not checking properly, please. But I am dreaming - three people will get convicted, s…

IIUC, EY was paid to check that what was reported in the books balances to zero. They were not paid to check that what was reported in the books was "correct". That's not EYs job. If somebody thinks a company lies in their books, they report it to BaFIN, and it is BaFIN job to investigate. They did the opposite of that here though.

Okay, if this is true, you are saying they are making billions by running a simple algorithm? Why do they exist?

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

#273

Post by FabHK »

freeflight wrote: post #254
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…

> 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 Gustl Mollath [0] would probably disagree with that notion, just like the death of Jürgen Möllemann [1] left more questions unanswered than a proper investigation of him would very likely have answered. Similar situation with Wolfgang Hüllen during the CDU donations scandal. Similarly the NSU process…

Mollath wasn’t killed: he was falsely imprisoned and received EUR 670k compensation for that. Mölleman‘s death was suicide (the accomplished parachuter jumped out of a plane less than half an hour after his parliamentary immunity was revoked, opened the main chute, cut it, and didn’t open the reserve, (and the automatic reserve deployment was disabled)).

Seriously, it’s not Russia.

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

#274

Post by allendoerfer »

dathinab wrote: post #181
levosmetalo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wen…

> Berlin Airport Sadly (luckily?) this wasn't corruption but plain out retarded levels of incompetence...

That’s not even incompetence. Dit is Berlin!

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

#275

Post by FabHK »

papito wrote: post #259
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…

What about Deutsche Bank? The absolute gold standard in international money laundering.

Swiss, US and UK Banks (HSBC) are not far behind though. But agreed, Deutsche aims to be participant in any possible scandal.

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

#276

Post by qayxc »

tsimionescu wrote: post #146
qayxc wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't mean that these politicians are untouchable. If a politician is being caught stealing (e.g. embezzlement), criminal charges W I L L be put forward and immunity will be stripped from them. The problem here is that unethical behaviour and gross incompetence simply aren't criminal offences. Are they to be tolerated? No! But that's a question of changing laws and legislation accordingly, not one of being "unto…

Corruption is different from gross incompetence and unethical behavior.

You're still missing the point completely - corruption is a crime. The problem is that pretty much nothing these politicians do is actually illegal and thus doesn't constitute a crime in the first place.

This is why legislation and regulations need to change, because that's way easier than trying to change people.

If you don't like the rules of the game, demand to change the rules instead of shouting "You're all cheaters!" and stop there. That's just cheap and not helpful at all.

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

#277

Post by allendoerfer »

freeflight wrote: post #261
peroporque wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even worse, von der Leyen got promoted to be head of the EU. I mean, wtf!

That's been a rather old joke among Germans: Politicians we don't like we just promote to the EU parliament to get rid of them.

There are no people west of Paris after all!

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

#278

Post by dpoochieni »

zepearl wrote: post #236
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guttenberg tried to hold onto his position. He at first rejected the accusations, even though they had already been extremely well documented: > Ich bin gerne bereit zu prüfen, ob bei über 1200 Fußnoten und 475 Seiten vereinzelt Fußnoten nicht oder nicht korrekt gesetzt sein sollten und würde dies bei einer Neuauflage berücksichtigen > I am perfectly willing to check whether in any of the over 1200 footnotes and 475…

Yeah, Guttenberg and Von der Leyen are definitely on my "bad people"-list. Guttenberg was even the main candidate to direct some sort of "Internet security/ethics" department (don't remember anymore exactly what it was)? What kind of joke is that? Von der Leyen was involved in the story about spending a lot of $ for external contracting companies & other stuff, then she got "promoted" to the EU-level => another joke,…

Damn I knew EU was a corrupt institution but didn't know they were so brazen to openly embrace such an individual as Mrs Leyen

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

#279

Post by bserge »

slightwinder wrote: post #76
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He sold his shares hours(!) before being signed on as minister and he sold them to the company that benefited the most from the copper cabling that he pushed for. How you can mistake this obvious corruption for incompetence is beyond me.

> He sold his shares hours(!) before being signed on as minister This is normal procedure. There is a rather short timeframe between appointment and becoming a minister. Of course did he sold it only after he know it would be a problem. > How you can mistake this obvious corruption for incompetence is beyond me. He had no benefits personally, so it's not corruption. This is just a nice story you tell the kids to give…

> Copper probably was indeed the better solution, consicdering that survived the decades, where fiber from that time has already become useless long ago.

Politics aside, isn't that the problem? Copper survived so it didn't need to be replaced. Fiber would have been replaced with newer one because otherwise it would not work at all. People put up with slow Internet, but they wouldn't have put up with no Internet.

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

#280

Post by mech422 »

maest wrote: post #268
manquer wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To any individual lower corruption is what that matters most. However as a country it is higher level corruption that costs you the most , all the money governments are spending without oversight on Coronavirus response for example . This is lot costlier to the country than a beat cop taking a bribe . Most ngos and corruption indices focus too much on lower level corruption instead of both.

I believe you are underestimating the negative drag low level corruption has on the economy. It means setting up businesses or conducting any commercial activity is slow and fraught with hidden costs and risks. Information isn't usually freely available and solving problems usually involes "knowing someone" and going through backchannels.

oh? sounds like trying to figure out why FAANG closed your developer account :-P
Post reply on HN