Bishop Wolfgang Huber levelled a sharp blast at Deutsche Bank for seeking a 25% pre-tax profit in 2009. “Never again should a Deutsche Bank chief executive set a profit goal of 25 per cent,” said Bishop Huber to the Berliner Zeitung newspaper. He termed seeking excessive profits “a form of idolatry," and added that “money has become a god.” Financial Times has the story, and reported that the Bank was "taken aback" by the charge.
Criticism of bankers from German politicians and church leaders is far from new but the complaints intensified and became more mainstream after the financial system almost failed in the wake of the mid-September Lehman Brothers collapse.
Deutsche Bank called the Bishop's comments "inappropriate," which is lame. The Bishop's remarks may be right, they may be wrong, but it is certainly not "inappropriate" for a church leader to comment publicly when the deadly sin of greed is openly embraced by the head of one of his country's and the world's largest banks.
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