Germany - US Will Lose Financial Superpower Status

By Cernig

The German finance minister has blamed the world's financial crisis on Anglo-Saxon greed and said that the finaincial world will now become more multi-polar, with the US losing its superpower status as the world's financial powerhouse.

"The world will never be as it was before the crisis," Steinbrueck, a deputy leader of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), told the Bundestag lower house.

"The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multi-polar," he said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose conservatives rule in coalition with the SPD, and Steinbrueck both pushed the Group of Eight (G8) to agree measures to boost financial market transparency during Germany's presidency of the G8 last year.

But their drive collapsed amid opposition from Washington and London. Merkel criticized their stance at the weekend, saying the days of laissez-faire capitalism were over.

... Steinbrueck, in one of the harshest attacks on U.S. policies from a G8 ally, denounced what he called an Anglo-Saxon drive for double-digit profits and massive bonuses for bankers and company executives.

"Investment bankers and politicians in New York, Washington and London were not willing to give these up," he said.

At the UN, other world leaders have echoed the German criticism, including France's Sarkozy, who has called for an overhaul of a "crazy" financial system. A German plan to do just that would instate new accountability for executives responsible for financial mistakes, an increase in bank's capital requirements and a worldwide ban on "purely speculative" short-selling.

None of the three big European economic nations - France, Germany and Britain - have come out in favor of a toxic asset bailout plan for banks such as the one proposed in the US.