I sneak past like a ghost
not caring for its lament.

Your pace is slow, emphatic
on the door’s weariness.

I get ahead of you
when, suddenly,
a gleam of will to reach
outside your self-built wall
as unintelligible words,
to my ears, resounds.

“Excuse me?”
my answer to you over the wall.

“I was talking to someone else,”
you reassure.

Just, there is no one else
so no response is heard.

(At this point in the plot, the album’s protagonist, Pink is attempting to reach anybody outside of his self-built wall. The repeated question “is there anybody out there?” suggests that no response is heard. Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall, Pink Floyd. Kiitos.)

I’m sure Mr. Schäuble is a reasonable man and I respect his opinion. Cross-border tax cheats as well as banks that resort to illegal practices are a problem that likely contributes to the financial destabilization of countries [1] and is probably pronounced in our ever more global world and in times of recession. However, I’m not sure if stating that “we will disestablish the bank secrecy in Europe” (Wolfgang Schäuble, interview with NZZ) is the most sensible approach.

What Mr. Schäuble does not appreciate is the core idea of the Swiss bank client confidentiality, namely, the freedom of financial privacy. Disestablishing the “bank secrecy” equals to giving up individual freedom and move power into the hands of a few, the likes of Mr. Schäuble or government at large, a dynamic that is inherently problematic. Homo sapiens with power has yet to evolve into knowing and wise.

Freedom never comes for free. With respect to bank client confidentiality, Swiss law sets decisional power into the hands of each individual. You, as holder of a Swiss bank account, are free and responsible to do the right thing, a privilege that comes with a price tag, i.e. to file a tax return faithfully knowing you could do differently. In the interview with NZZ, Mr. Schäuble argues that “he wants to assure the people of Germany that nobody can withdraw from tax liability.” I quote,

Er [Herr Schäuble] wolle vor allem den Menschen in Deutschland das Gefühl geben, dass sich niemand seiner Steuerpflicht entziehen könne. (NZZ)

Do we really trust an anonymous, transient, non-transparent, government made of people more than our neighbor or, for that matter, a random person, that it will not abuse of power? To me, Mr. Schäuble’s parental-like authority sounds more like the irate voice of a teacher who feels the urge to castigate students because (s)he has lost the attention of a few. My voice goes more along Pink Floyd’s lines “We don’t need no education//We don’t need no thought control,” Mr. Schäuble.

On the contrary, I wonder what speaks against introducing bank client confidentiality everywhere.

[1] Werner Vontobel und Viktor Parma. Schurkenstaat Schweiz?: Wie sich der größte Bankenstaat der Welt korrumpiert und andere Länder destabilisiert. C. Bertelsmann Verlag, Januar 2009, ISBN: 978-3-570-01083-9

Today, a friend of mine pointed me to a video by Jonathan Jarvis entitled “The Crisis of Credit Visualized.” Jonathan reviews, with simple words and animations, the origins of the current financial crisis. I think, the video is worth the 11 minutes.

Even though Roger argued for a different cause, namely war, I would like to link Jonathan’s video with Roger’s lyrics, part of the song Perfect Sense, part II, the global anthem,

Can’t you see
It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents
Pounds shillings and pence

With John Izaak Alpert’s words on Roger’s global anthem,

If you value things in terms of money everything makes sense, but the reverse is also true: if you value things in terms of love, loyalty, and human feelings, nothing makes sense.

John refers to war rather then to a financial fiasco but if you consider the bombs, the little bursting houses and mortgages, the all rich home owners, brokers, lenders, bankers, investors in Jonathan’s animations, doesn’t it look just like another type of war? Anyone wonders whether or not it makes perfect sense this US civil war spread over to the world and became sort of a world war? It does to me, make perfect sense, for I’m appalled in the first place about our own Swiss banks and their greed.