On occasion of the payment of a dividend of over 280 million Euros to the stockholders of Deutsche Bank, Sahra Wagenknecht, member of the executive of the party THE LEFT, states:

“It seems as if the greatest gamblers were to get out unscathed by the crisis. While millions of people fear for their jobs and need to accept significant income losses due to short work, German companies pay yields in the tens of billions of Euros. Even Deutsche Bank which has played a central role in the trade with toxic scrap values, will reward its shareholders today with a yield of 0.50 Euro per share.

This distribution is justified by the fairy-tale that Deutsche Bank as the only big German bank did not have to recur to state money. “Therefore, I am very happy – in particular in the interest of our stockholders – that we did not have to ask the government for any tax money“, Deutsche Bank head Ackermann sounded off at yesterday's general assembly and at the same time confirmed the goal to want to hold on to a yield on capital of 25 percent.

Now it may be that Mr. Ackermann did not have to ask for support, but that the government took care voluntarily that German Bank does not get stuck with open assets. In any event, it is clear that this yield of Deutsche Bank can only be paid because the taxpayer in the end pays for the gigantic speculative losses by the financial sector. After all, who benefits from the tax money that the state has mobilized for the rescue of the Hypo Real Estate, Commerzbank or IKB?

Last but not least Deutsche Bank which might otherwise be forced to write off the far larger part of its assets. The US American taxpayers alone supported Deutsche Bank by more than 12 bn. Dollars - here it is simply the case of the liabilities that the insurance giant AIG had incurred vis-à-vis Deutsche Bank. And as far as the IKB is concerned, it may even be proven that Deutsche Bank itself passed its scrap papers to IKB – for which then the state had to come up.

Therefore, it is high time to do away with the myth that Deutsche Bank can deal with the crisis on its own. And it is high time to proceed not only against overblown bonuses and manager salaries, but to ask their share also from the large wealth holders and stockholders who could put away more than 22 billion Euros in dividends this year. Instead of thinking about the creation of individual bad banks, the entire financial sector finally needs to be transferred into public hands. This is the cheapest solution not only for the taxpayer, but also the only way to make sure that the German banks again fulfil their original task of financing useful investments instead of concluding windy speculative deals.“

Sahra Wagenknecht
Berlin, May 27, 2009