Dangerous Incest between Politics and Finance

It is common practice in the United States for senior executives from the most powerful banks and investment funds to go on to hold high-level economic posts in government, and for those presiding over U.S. public accounts to crop up on Wall Street one day with multimillion-dollar salaries. This two-way flow is known in the English-speaking world as the “revolving door” and is the most palpable demonstration of the incestuous relationship between political and financial power, with the scales tipped overwhelmingly in favor of the latter.

The blatant shuffling of high-ranking personnel between public and private sectors, well portrayed in the documentary film “Inside Job,” is now becoming widespread in Europe, seriously threatening the interests of private citizens against the great economic powers. Currently, 14 of the 27 European Union countries have placed bankers or investment fund managers at the head of their finance ministries or their central banks, while at least four former EU commissioners under Durão Barroso have gone on to work for large financial companies. Perhaps the most paradigmatic instances of these recruitment shuffles are those of the newly-appointed president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, and the new Italian prime minister and technocrat, Mario Monti, both of whom have a background with Goldman Sachs.

International experts have no hesitation in describing what´s going on as a “financial dictatorship” or a “financial coup d´etat.” And unfortunately, political leaders are not providing arguments convincing enough to dispel these dismal observations.