The Vampire Economy by Günter Reimann

Author:Günter Reimann [Reimann, Günter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610160384
Publisher: Mises Institute
Published: 2007-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter XI

STOCK EXCHANGE AND SPECULATION UNDER FASCISM

“The ‘Aryan’ members of the Berlin Stock Exchange have

lost much more than they gained by the removal of the

‘Non-Aryans.’ “

THE Berlin Stock Exchange still exists—as a building, as an institution with large offices, with brokers and bankers, with a huge organization for daily announcement of stock and bond quotations. But it is only a pale imitation of its former self and of what a stock exchange is supposed to be. For the Stock Exchange cannot function if and when the State regulates the flow of capital and destroys the confidence of investors in the sanctity of their property rights.

The glorious days when millions of marks daily poured into the Stock Exchange, when the bonds and securities of foreign countries were handled, when new concerns and trusts were promoted and exciting speculative maneuvers were staged—those glorious times have long since departed, and even the doorkeeper who vividly remembers the excitement of the “good old days” does not believe that they will ever return. Yet the decrepit machine still runs. The office staff, brokers and bankers have been reduced in numbers as a result of the enforced removal of all “non-Aryans.” But the pure “Aryans” who remain members of the Stock Exchange do not enjoy their privileges under totalitarianism. Some of them may have expected to prosper after the exodus of the Jewish brokers and bankers, by having inherited their business. But the “Aryan” members of the Berlin Stock Exchange have lost much more than they gained by the removal of the “non-Aryans.” They do not have much to do and feel strongly that they have become superfluous because the Stock Exchange no longer functions as such. It has become an empty husk. Sales amounting to a few thousand marks are great events and may easily cause wild fluctuation in the price of securities unless the State Commissar intervenes.

The commission a Berlin broker can charge a customer is much less than the commission charged by a broker on the New York Stock Exchange. Commissions are calculated differently in Berlin than in New York, yet a rough comparison is possible. And not only does a Berlin broker receive on each specific transaction a smaller commission than does his “opposite number” in New York, but there are far fewer transactions; the volume of sales is infinitely less in Berlin than in New York. Thus in every respect a member of the New York Stock Exchange occupies a far stronger position than does a member of the Berlin institution.

Slack business is not a peculiarity of the Berlin Stock Exchange. Wall Street, too, has experienced it. But the Berlin Stock Exchange represents a phenomenon of its own—a State regimentation quite different from the supervision of the Stock Exchange as it existed before the Nazis came to power. A State Commissar for the Stock Exchange already existed in pre-Hitler Germany. This State Commissar daily visited the Stock Exchange but he was without real influence. His role was merely supervisory, similar to

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