If you can, do pick up this week's issue of Der Spiegel, which is devoted to Deutsche Bank's role in the US financial crisis. The title of the piece - "USA Against Deutsche Bank" - should actually be reversed - "Deutsche Bank Against USA" - for the Spiegel reporters document in some detail how the German bank defrauded investors, American taxpayers, threw tens of thousands Americans from their homes through its foreclosure practices and turned vast swaths of Ohio, Wisconsin, California and Florida in a wasteland of abandoned properties - while showering bankers and hedge fund managers with $$millions in bonuses and capital gains.
The article is unfortunately behind the firewall, but a short piece on the English language Web site outlines the wave of litigation facing Deutsche Bank in the wake of its illegal activities in the US:
Authorities appear to be concerned about the many lawsuits pending against Germany's biggest bank. At a meeting with management board members of Deutsche Bank in New York in October, regulators from Germany, the US and Britain demanded that the bank submit a report on the open US lawsuits and the compensation claims linked to them.
The litigation includes a $1 billion claim from the US government which has filed a lawsuit alleging that Deutsche Bank and its subsidiary Mortgage IT wrongfully obtained state credit guarantees. In addition, the Federal Housing Finance Agency is suing the Frankfurt-based bank, as is the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association.
Der Spiegel describes the role of Anshu Jain in presiding over the bank's US activities during the peak of the financial crisis. Rather than firing Jain or bringing charges against him for exposing the bank to criminal investigations and $$billion lawsuits, the board of Deutsche Bank has elevated him to co-CEO.
Missing from the Spiegel article is any mention of Deutsche Bank's activities in Las Vegas, where it invested the bailout money it received from US taxpayers in failed casinos and is now working to disenfranchise Latino hotel workers. Ken Liu of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 maintains an excellent Web site - DB Risk Alert - which tracks Deutsche Banks actions against American workers.
Der Spiegel has published a concise history of the Deutsche Bank's treachery in the US, but it is nothing new to readers of Dialog International for the past 4 years. Remember, you read it here first:
Deutsche Bank: America's Foreclosure King
AIG Bailout Funds Went to Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank's Illegal US Foreclosure Practices
How Deutsche Bank Destroyed Milwaukee
Deutsche Bank's $5 Billion Short
Merry Christmas! Deutsche Bank Tries to Evict 103-Year Old Woman
Well, one billion dollars isn't what it used to be anymore, peanuts, as Ackermann would say. One billion people forced to pay skyrocketing food prices (or starve) driven by speculations of an elite of supernational bankers - that's a problem for the entire planet.
Posted by: Strahler 70 | February 02, 2012 at 10:12 PM
Capitalism continues to be bait for socialism, but should we bite?
Posted by: michijo | February 05, 2012 at 06:31 AM
The USA is an All-Or-Nothing land: if the extreme event of bankers not getting to profit doesn't occur, then the USA will become communist immediately. All-or-Nothing is the negative psychological thinking of the west.
The USA and Germany are filled with negativistic thinking of the kind that is commonly diagnosed in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as "irrational thinking". The banks needs cognitive behavioral therapy.
Posted by: michijo | February 15, 2012 at 06:35 PM
Fraud has always shaken up investor confidence. I lost faith in the wall street financial groups like the Lehman brothers alongside the American Insurance Group. Given this scale of fraud, it is no surprise that European banks aside from the Swiss are involved.
Posted by: Gilda J. Richey | February 20, 2013 at 10:06 PM