ABSTRACT
Frankfurt, October 2011: In the farewell event for Jean-Claude Trichet, who was handing over his presidency of the European Central Bank to Mario Draghi, the remarks by the elder statesman Helmut Schmidt created a sensation. The eminent speaker referred to psychotic traders who hold politicians hostage. It was an emotional statement; a reverberation of a diffused public sentiment. Beyond the critique of what he regarded as the subaltern status of politicians succumbing to the power of casino-like finance, he expressed the outrage towards what is widely perceived as the harmful moral flexibility of traders and investment bankers. The implicit point he made was that taking a closer look at the corrosion of character, to use Richard Sennett’s expression, really matters (Sennett 1999). Top managers and recruiters who are headhunting unscrupulous highflyers also play their part. The criteria applied for the selection of personnel by organizations which are supposed to be interested in the preservation of financial stability, apparently multiply the tendencies towards recklessness and irresponsibility.
