This year’s New Year Newsletter focuses on the ethical limits of the finance sector.
Friends and colleagues of iff,
ladies and gentlemen,
we wish you a Happy New Year for 2007. For ourselves, on the occasion of iff’s 20th anniversary, our wish is that we will come closer to our goal of deepening our inquiry into current problems in the finance sector. Adolf Endler wrote a poem about this objective in a single line entitled ”Discomfort”, writing in the then German Democratic Republic ”Dass man ihn endlich aus dem Land rausschlage, auf jede Antwort weiß das Schwein die Frage” .(Drive the pig from the land – it knows the question for every answer). It is our intention to remain uncomfortable in the same sense, in order to counter the disastrous illusion created by the promises of the credit society, that money is wealth in itself, rather than the use to which it is put. This year’s New Year Newsletter focuses on the ethical limits of the finance sector.
News of new usury and corruption in the finance sector (1.)
lead to reflection on the changes in the ethics of a society based on the payment of commissions (2.).
In our most extensive section (3.), we go on to look to Max Weber and Adam Smith for answers and to offer ideas for ethics in the finance sector.
Section (4.) examines false prophets of ethics.
Section (5.) sets out iff’s successes and aims and section (6.) introduces iff’s staff members. At the end we will ask something of you.