German finance mininster labels US stress tests "worthless"...

Peer Steinbrück, Germany’s finance minister, on Wednesday attacked proposals to conduct stress tests on individual European banks and labelled the financing checks of US institutions “worthless”.

The outspoken minister’s comments came after the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday called for Europe to conduct stress tests of its banks based on the US model.

In the most vocal expression of Berlin’s long-standing scepticism about the wisdom of individual stress tests, Mr Steinbrück called the testing of 19 US banks pointless because their results had been altered before publication.

“We are currently seeing that the stress test in the US is worthless because the central bank exercised influence as well as the Treasury,” Mr Steinbrück told the German parliament.

He added that the publication of unaltered results from individual stress tests was equally dangerous because it “could increase a pro-cyclical negative effect”.

Germany has long opposed calls for the individual testing of banks’ abilities to withstand various economic scenarios as it thinks it could undermine the confidence in the banking sector. The German cabinet endorsed a bad bank scheme to rid the country’s banks of their toxic assets.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f4cf25a0-3ff6-11de-9ced-00144feabdc0.html

 

Looks like he is in the "know" about the European Banking system

 

And he is quite eloquent in his wording "pro-cyclical negative effect". LOL ! About which cycle is he talking ?

 

Hahaha, this is so like the Europeans... "Hear no evil, speak no evil,..."

 

There is no "european" banking system or "Amerikan" banking system I would think. It's all global.

Did you know for instance ING has 14 million customers in the US alone?

 

You should argue with Mr. Steinbrück. Didn't he proclaim just a few months ago how the "German banking system is far superior to the anglo-saxon model"?

 

we all know these stress tests were designed to boost confidence in the banking sector.

I love the Germans when they react like this. They know it's not for real but still, they don't want to participate. They don't seem to believe in self-taught lies. Well, not really self-taught as they first came from the US. Maybe that's why...