New German Article

A brief summary in English:

· The financial crisis was caused by a corrupt elite within the financial establishment while oil scarcity is fabricated by the big industry players.

· The majority of corporate shares should be owned by employees and not investors.

· Dr. Batra is often criticized because he strays from the mainstream based on clear economic facts and logic.

· The ruling class (G.W. Bush, etc.) got rich under Greenspan (as did he) while the middle class and poor lost out – corruption is the real reason for the current world-wide recession.

· Greenspan’s reaction to the crisis in ‘87 was to resolve a deficit problem with more deficit, which led to the culture of borrowing and living on credit that we now see at the root of our current issues.

· Goldman Sachs is not a lick better than Enron in that it is a prime motor of the corruption among government circles. They will cause the next major economic crisis.

· Oil prices will continue to rise based on an “artificial” monopoly that the industry has created. Dr. Batra had foreseen this development years ago.

· The current problems will continue through 2012 and any major improvement requires that people elect a new leadership in the US.

· The main instrument to achieve better economic conditions is that the divide between income and productivity needs to be reduced.
This requires what Dr. Batra calls economic democracy – the majority of shares in a corporation should be in the hands of the workers. The is the only way to create a focus on internal stakeholders as opposed to just external investors. For workers to receive an appropriate wage increase for rising productivity, it is essential that the CEO’s job depends on satisfied employees.