‘Snooty’ bankers blamed for global credit crisis

LONDON – ‘Snooty’ bankers and financiers who thought themselves infallible were largely to blame for the worldwide credit crunch, the German finance minister said in an interview published Friday.

Speaking to the Financial Times in Berlin, Peer Steinbrueck also said that regulatory reform was required to ensure a better response to such crises. “The snooty attitude that we have sometimes seen – under the motto of ‘we are cleverer than the others’ – ended in disaster,” Steinbrueck told the business daily.He advocated a voluntary system for increasing transparency in the financial markets, which he said had been initially misunderstood but was now winning support.”There was a misunderstanding that the Germans wanted to implement some sort of legal regulation,” he said.”This was never our intention.It was always about sets of standards, codes of conduct, guidelines, voluntarily implemented and monitored by the industry itself.”Steinbrueck warned that the impact of the crisis in American sub-prime housing on the international financial markets “shows the degree to which the economic and financial systems have become global.”Nampa-AFP”The snooty attitude that we have sometimes seen – under the motto of ‘we are cleverer than the others’ – ended in disaster,” Steinbrueck told the business daily.He advocated a voluntary system for increasing transparency in the financial markets, which he said had been initially misunderstood but was now winning support.”There was a misunderstanding that the Germans wanted to implement some sort of legal regulation,” he said.”This was never our intention.It was always about sets of standards, codes of conduct, guidelines, voluntarily implemented and monitored by the industry itself.”Steinbrueck warned that the impact of the crisis in American sub-prime housing on the international financial markets “shows the degree to which the economic and financial systems have become global.”Nampa-AFP