“It would be news to me if managers were being beaten, murdered or locked up in concentration camps”

A German economist has created a stir, by arguing that bankers are scapegoats in the current financial crisis, and by comparing them to Jews in Nazi Germany. Stephan Kramer, general-secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany demanded an immediate apology, saying, “It would be news to me if managers were being beaten, murdered or locked up in concentration camps.”

Kramer understated the matter when he also said, “This comparison is outrageous, absurd and completely misplaced, an insult to the victims.” For one thing, the Jews were likely as innocent as it is possible for capitalists to be; they certainly engaged in nothing like the massive fraud that created the current financial crisis. For another, the perpetrators of this fraud, rather than being shipped off to concentration camps, are retiring to comfortable upper class lifestyles. They are not being forced to sell their assets on the cheap. They are not losing their homes.

It isn’t just Jews to whom Kramer owes an apology.

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