“What we’re dealing with, above all in New York and London, is a combination of high intelligence mixed with mathematical gifts, extreme selfishness and self-enrichment with an absence of sufficient power of judgment and sense of responsibility. You can name this disease:unconstrained greed.”
“At the same time, we’ve seen, however, a nonchalant ignorance among governments and official bodies, an unprecedented negligence on the part of the entire political class which recklessly relied onthe self-healing power of financial markets instead of intervening at the right time. That holds above all for the USA and Great Britain.”
Helmut Schmidt: blames Americans and British for global recession. Photograph: Boris Roessler/EPA