Neue Debatte - Special Edition - Long Essay on Left Strategy #002 - 04/2017 | Page 65

11 Choosing the right track
It is sheer Euro-chauvinism to present Eurozone banks separated
from global networks. Actually, we can hardly separate European
from American banks. The European big banks have always been part
of the global network of mega-banks. Let’s have a look on
D e u t s c h e B a n k . The M a n a g e m e n t B o a r d consists of 6 for-
eigners (3 Britons, 1 South African, 1 American, 1 Frenchwoman) and
4 Germans. CEO is an Englishman. There exist career affiliations to
Credit Suisse, Banque de France, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Leh-
man Brothers and Bear Stearns (both went under in 2008), Postbank
AG, UBS Group SG and S.G.Warburg&Co. London (investment bank),
Temasek Holdings (Singapore investment company), Investec Bank
South Africa (property operations, asset management); non-banking
connections to: Boing, Ford Motors, Dell Inc., E.ON SE. Via the S u -
p e r v i s o r y B o a r d contacts to Allianz SE, Renova Management AG,
Zürich (intern. assets), Standard Chartered PLC, UK (banking, financial
services), Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, New York (intern.
law firm), Franz Haniel&Cie. Duisburg (investment holding), E..ON SE.
In the Supervisory Board we find an Brazilian- American (Warburg
Pincus LLC, New York (private equity firm), J.P. Morgan, Chase Man-
hattan), and two British managers (Alliance Trust, UK (shareholders’
prosperity), Morley Fund Management Ltd, UK (investment man-
agement), Woolwich PLC, UK (financial service provider)). This is
merely a tiny, tiny bit of the overall cross-linkage in the global finan-
cial banking sphere. We have not seen yet the real extent of the mu-
tual dependencies by shares and capital overlappings and the back-
ground M&A operations (mergers & acquisitions).
We get a rough impression on what a civilized, hard and honestly
working and cooperating world does not need at all! Banks are the
home base of worldwide speculation, betting, and gambling with illu-
sionary capital and fiat money across all borders. They are responsi-
ble for blowing up financial bubbles. We have to differ between real
economy business banking and hazardous investment banking. In the
US banking tradition these business fields are strictly separated from
another and so we got to know specialized investment superbanks as
ticking time bombs in world economy.
Finance capitalism is not an invention of as clever as evil bankers, fi-
nanciers and shareholders. It is the inevitable, probably final stadium
of this economic system - “red giant-capitalism” heading for implo-
sion. In cannot be the task of a people’s government to support fail-
ing banks with people’s tax funds. On the contrary its policy should
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