Financial syndicate wants to dry up savings banks

by Professor Dr Eberhard Hamer

Throughout the world, the financial and banking system is arranged in completely different ways:
The respective money is supplied by the central banks, which have to control and secure the currency. In the Anglo-Saxon region (USA, UK among others), the central banks are private banks, so that their owners ultimately control currency and money supply via the central bank. In other words, they can increase (print) or decrease (crash) money at will for their own benefit. In the City of London, for example, the Anglo-Saxon financial syndicate has created a sovereign small state that is subordinate to the Queen, but not to the British government – not even to the English tax system. In the UK, 90 % of bank deposits are held by only five major banks, which thus in principle represent the entire banking system. In the USA, there are likewise a dozen big banks that dominate the banking landscape. They make their profits mainly from speculative and investment transactions (derivatives, participations, stock market launches, financial transactions, speculative loans), but also from real estate loans as well as corporate and country bonds. The big banks are also owners of the central bank and in turn belong to a financial syndicate consisting of a handful of families.
The German, Austrian and Swiss banking systems, on the other hand, are dominated by small local banks – in Germany, 1050 Volksbanken (people’s banks) and 450 Sparkassen (savings banks) make up 70% of all banks – and these do not lend money which has been newly created by their syndicate. Instead, they collect money from their customers and lend it – with interest gains – to small and medium-sized enterprises and households. Contrary to the speculative profit basis of the big banks, our small local banks therefore live off the interest difference between deposits and loans.
This is reflected in the respective risks incurred by the two banking systems. While the risk of speculative banks lies in their risk transactions, the large risks of their corporate bonds or the financial standing of their debtor states, the risk of local banks is not only widely spread, but also limited to the individual risks of their diverse borrowers. So while the big banks are the “large scale economy banks” respectively the banks of international speculation and public sector loans, the small local banks are limited to their regional medium-sized customers.
Big banks are not interested in medium-sized companies; they want to grant large loans globally and to conduct large financial transactions. The cooperative banks and savings banks, on the other hand, are regional, small and therefore also interested in small and medium-sized enterprises and private customers in their region. They have to live from this “Mittelstand”, so they are his original partner.
About 100 years ago, there was also a flourishing landscape of small regional credit banks in the USA. Most of them have now disappeared because of the concentration pressure and currency manipulation of the big banks. By concentrating, the financial syndicate has extended its financial dominance throughout the country.
When the EU was founded, the Anglo-Saxon financial syndicate acted as a godfather, filling in particular the central positions (Goldman Sachs: Macron, Draghi, Lagarde; plus all EU presidents and most central bank heads). Almost every year, the author has warned against the financial syndicate’s wish to drag down small banks and achieve a concentration in favour of big banks also in Europe, as well as in the USA. Not only should the nation states be abolished according to the Lisbon Treaty and the will of the old and new EU Commission, but currency and finances should also be concentrated in an EU liability, debt and financial union. To this end, the syndicate wants to destroy the small local banks (Draghi: “Overcapacities in the banking sector in the euro zone”, “the number of banks is to be reduced” (21 July 2016)).
This policy of destroying the Mittelstand banks is being pursued through three measures:

  1. Interest is being abolished, so that the savings banks and people’s banks, which live from the interest rate differential, can no longer pass on interest to their customers and can hardly take interest on their loans. In this way, the basis of existence of the SME banks – the interest-rate lending business – is to be destroyed.
    At the same time, however, the speculative transactions of the big banks belonging to the syndicate are guaranteed, at the expense of the citizens, by EU rescues of banks and states in the event of loss.
  2. By means of the so-called “banking union” all banks are to be forced to merge, so that there will be only a few big banks left per country. In particular, the joint funds already in existence make the financially sound small banks liable for the speculative losses of the big banks.
  3. To this end, the ECB and the European Commission have tightened the supervisory requirements for banks to such an extent that small banks in particular are suffering, because they have to meet the same requirements and fill out the same forms as the big international banks.

In addition, the “Basel III/IV regulation” has decisively tightened up lending by savings banks, so that they no longer have to deposit only 8.1 % equity capital for a SME loan, but 10.5 %, which excludes most SME loans economically. In addition, the requirements for loans are formulated in a way that is hostile to SMEs: The credit basis is only the real value, i.e. the underlying real capital. The success basis of medium-sized sole-proprietor companies, however, is the entrepreneur, and their loan is therefore a personal loan. This aspect of success, which is decisive for small and medium-sized enterprises, is practically no longer allowed to be evaluated by the SME banks today.
In this way, requirements, regulations and obstacles hostile to small and medium-sized enterprises have torpedoed the interest-rate lending business of our people’s banks and savings banks, which remained financially sound for 200 years, and these small and medium-sized personnel banks now all have their backs to the wall, and some of them are in existential need.
The German federal government does not seem to be interested in these facts. It has agreed to all the harassment against the Mittelstand banks, or it is so heavily influenced by the financial syndicate that it has not dared to object. No protest could be expected from other EU countries, because (with the exception of Austria) they do not have the typical German cooperative bank and savings bank culture.
Those who deal with people’s banks know about the existential need now prevailing there. At the same time, however, the Mittelstandsinstitut Niedersachsen points out that a decline or even dying of this branch and of the local banks will necessarily have a more disastrous effect on the German economy than it would have on that of other countries, because 94% of our companies are medium-sized single proprietor companies, which in turn depend existentially on the financing of their local Mittelstand banks (cooperative banks, savings banks). Any decline of these important middle class banks also affects the financing of the Mittelstand (SME’s and middle class), undermines its existence, because in contrast to Ludwig Erhard’s times politics today prevent enterprises’ self-financing from profit by means of maximum taxation, and so make the enterprises dependent on outside credit. If, however, outside credits are also no longer to be got, not only the local banks die, but so does the Mittelstand in Germany. And if this decreases, the main pillar of our economy will collapse, which is still supporting half of our national product, two-thirds of our taxes and social security contributions and three-quarters of jobs in our economy.
So if the international financial syndicate gains control over all the banks in Europe in the banking union, it will impose its quite different international banking structure on us and not only cheat German savers out of 360 billion interest as it already does, but it will also use the zero interest rate to torpedo the livelihood of our SME banks – and thus the financing of our SME sector and our middle class. To wit, anyone who no longer has an interest rate differential between income and expenditure will no longer be able to grant loans to his SME customers. And if the local cooperative banks and savings banks are no longer able to grant personal loans, small and medium-sized enterprises can no longer grow, can no longer finance themselves, can no longer create jobs, and in many cases can no longer survive.
In the great game of money, credit, debt and speculation, the financial jugglers of the Anglo-Saxon financial syndicate are deliberately destroying medium-sized banks and promoting big banks. And if the latter should collapse, they do not even have to bear their own risks and debts.
It was not for nothing that the financial syndicate prevented the steady and reli­able German Bundesbank President ­Weidmann in the ECB by appointing the willing Goldman-Sachs servant Lagarde, who promised unlimited state funding, zero interest rates and centralisation.
As finance scientists and researchers, we are left with only appeals. Unfortunately, politicians are not personally liable for their mistakes. But since there is an imminent danger for the majority of our companies, for jobs and for the welfare of our state, our entreaty should also hold an appeal to the majority of our population; it is but a question of journalistic presentation to make people understand and see the danger and protest against it. The danger could be averted if the policy were forced to be corrected by the voters!•
(Translation Current Concerns)

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