The former UBS and CS CEO Oswald Gruebel goes in hard on the low-interest policy of the central banks - and fears the worst.
«After the financial crisis, politics has taken power,» says Oswald Gruebel for SonntagsBlick (paywall). It has strapped the banks into a regulation corset. Now they have no room to move.
The politicians told the central banks: You are now determining what is going on with the economy, explained Gruebel. Previously the risk was distributed to thousands of banks. «The risk lay with the shareholders. Today the state itself is increasingly at risk,» says Gruebel.
Losses due to minus interest
«Every year, banks are losing hundreds of millions of francs because they pay interest on central banks.» He is opposed to the objection that rising interest rates will cause a recession. «A recession is sometimes necessary to abolish old structures and to renew them,» says Gruebel.
He goes on to say that the next crash will be one where central banks crash: «The central banks have crossed the point of no return. It will end in a crash, and the one left with the bill will once again be the ordinary person in the street.»
A Serious Matter
Banks would not recover so quickly and could then belong to the state. This will be a more serious matter. According to the former banker, whose forecasts have often proved to be correct.
