When he presented his proposals for taming banks in late September, Peer Steinbrück was once again spoiling for a fight. The Social Democratic candidate for the Chancellery in next year’s general election railed against the chase for short-term returns and excesses within the sector and harshly criticized the “market-conforming democracy” in which politics and people’s lives had become mere playthings of the financial markets.

Steinbrück’s speech lasted half an hour, or a minute for each of the pages of a document he had prepared on the same issue. The paper lists a whole series of suggested regulations, most of which seem entirely sensible. Most interesting, however, is what’s missing from the paper — and what has thus far been absent from almost all of the proposals of other financial reformers: the disastrous degree to which countries are now dependent on banks.

Read Here – Der Spiegel