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page 138 chapter III
ecutive employees and their professional competence
would certainly be important in such bodies.”
The crisis as an opportunity to re-think
“What would you say if the assistance given to Opel and
other companies were to prevent structural adjustments
that might be necessary?” asked Klaus Prömpers.
“It displeases me that representatives of the so-called
real economy act as though the financial crisis was to
blame for every problem, such as poor car sales,” said
Klaus-Peter Müller. “All of us – the economy, the state
and the public – have been living beyond our means.” A
marked entitlement mentality had developed – “I’m
entitled to all that” – and this often led to debts being
made. “It’s unacceptable that employees firmly reckon
with a bonus payment when calculating their private
expenditure, as though it were definitely coming and
they were entitled to it. We must increasingly ask ourselves
what we can afford and what we can’t. That particularly
applies to governments, since there is otherwise
a risk of inflation, especially in the USA.”
Despite all the negative impacts of the financial and
economic crisis, Klaus-Peter Müller said there was a
need to put things into perspective: “When people now
say that our economy could decline to the level of a few
years ago, they depict that as a catastrophe. I think we
need to put things into perspective here: if a certain
loss of prosperity is the worst thing we have to live with
in the next 30 years, we're really not badly off at all.”
The Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank
said he considered the reactions of the G-20 to
the financial and economic crisis to be surprisingly