Judy Dempsey
Published: December 26, 2008
Published: December 26, 2008
BERLIN: Leaders of Germany's Protestant and Catholic churches warned Friday that "money has become God" and called for a return to nonmaterialistic values and urged bank managers to be more prudent during their Christmas messages.
Bishop Wolfgang Huber, who represents 25 million Protestants in Germany, criticized the strong profit-driven focus and "culture of greed" of individual bank managers and executives, and even named Josef Ackermann, chief of Deutsche Bank, as an example.
Banks needed to give more priority to "sustainable value-building" rather than to short-term financial gain and hefty bonuses for its managers, Huber said.
"Money has become akin to God in the current situation," Huber told daily Berliner Zeitung.
Referring to Ackermann, one of Germany's most highly-paid bankers who this month said Deutsche Bank's investment banking businesses would generate a return on equity of 20 to 25 percent after the end of the current financial turmoil, Huber was very critical.
Today in Europe
Religious Turks tested by wealth
Germany resists calls to spend its way out of trouble
NATO awaits new leadership
"Never again will a Deutsche Bank CEO set a target of 25 percent on equity returns," warning that it would create expectations that would grow larger and could never be fulfilled. He asked managers to be more prudent and forgo large bonuses."
Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the Catholic Archbishop of Cologne, said a banker was "the custodian for money that doesn't belong to him and with which he has to work said Wednesday .
"It's devastating that this ethos can simply disappear and that people can trade with things that don't exist."