[The Independent, U.K.]
Die Welt, Germany
The End of Bank
Secrecy is Nothing to Celebrate
"Without remorse or a backward
glance, bank secrecy was tossed into the grave at the G-20 summit, and with it,
the remnants of the bourgeois age. … It's worth recalling that the totalitarian
regimes of the 20th century scrapped bank secrecy because they regarded it as a
tool of bourgeois resistance."
By Michael Stürmer, Historian
Translated By Jonathan Lobsien
April 2, 2009
Germany - Die Welt - Original Article (German)
The G-20 Summit
has abolished bank secrecy. This is a blow against bourgeois ideals. It's worth recalling
that the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century entirely scrapped bank
secrecy, regarding this as a bastion of bourgeois resistance. Unfortunately,
the modern tax state is spreading without restraint.
[Editor's Note: The
word 'bourgeois' refers to the class of
people that own the means for producing wealth who were not aristocrats, and
was more commonly used during the 19th and early 20th century. Generally
speaking, this was the well-off class who had to work for their money,
essentially the merchant class].
There was once bank
secrecy, which was based on trust between citizens and the bank, similar to the
trust between both of them and the state. Without remorse or a backward glance,
bank secrecy was tossed into the grave at the G-20 summit, and with it, the
remnants of the bourgeois age.
This farewell is cause for
more than just a cynical shrug. It may already mean that data security is
nothing but an empty word or innocent remark, although people may have nothing
to hide. It's worth recalling that the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century
scrapped bank secrecy because they regarded it as a bastion of bourgeois resistance. Unfortunately, the modern tax
state has a tendency of spreading without restraint to control all or nearly
all of life's events, and - to quote Bismarck's early warning - to put the "peasants
under general suspicion [misera
contribuens plebs]."
Undoubtedly, taxes must be paid.
It doesn't have to be done with a smile. It suffices for the State to responsibly
handle the taxes it collects on a sliding progressive scale. This is the
foundation of its legitimacy. But, as the Federal Constitutional Court already
established years ago, the threshold of taxation ends somewhere near 50 percent
of income.
[The
Telegraph, U.K.]
As long as those who manage
the treasury see themselves as stewards of trust rather than a superior authority,
as long as those in charge are aware that they are entrusted with the money of
others, and as long as the postulates of justice does not become an excuse for creeping
expropriation, then all is right and proper. And so it was even in the early
years and decades of the Federal Republic [of Germany]. The Germans were,
unlike some of their neighbors, exemplary in their obedience to the law.
The German finance minister, however,
driven by financial difficulties and a desire for redistribution, used September
11th, pressure by the American Internal Revenue Service and fear of global
terrorism to coolly eliminate the remains of bank secrecy, at least for
Germany. The freely-elected representatives of the German Bundestag [Parliament],
who have themselves ordered not insignificant lump sums withheld for the Treasury
as if no one else were entitled to them, are now adding insult to injury by passing
the whole thing under the title, “The Act for Promoting Tax Honesty.”
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
The banking business is a
matter of trust, a late blossom of modern culture. It's not for nothing that we
speak of "bank notes," not "state notes." Behind this are
experiences of financial collapse and social catastrophe. In his Divine Comedy, Dante
reserves the lowest level of Hell for those corrupted by money. Next to
Pestilence and War, Inflation belongs with the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
CLICK HERE FOR GERMAN VERSION
[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US April 3, 11:26pm]
