A magical substance

VBKI talks to ZDF stock market expert Bethmann about money

More than half of Germans do not know what inflation is. And even fewer know what the term "deposit protection" means. What's wrong with it?

You don't talk about money. In many German families, this phrase is common knowledge. However, this taboo also has disadvantages, as it also seems to block access to knowledge about money. Inflation? Hmmm, difficult. Deposit protection? Uh, what was that again in the middle section?

The somewhat unwieldy relationship with money was the subject of a well-attended VBKI event. Frank Bethmann, a well-known ZDF stock market expert, and Rainer Voss were invited as star guests. Voss was a thoroughbred banker for many years and a star of the investment scene. "We Germans have a very emotionally charged relationship with money - this is also manifested in our language," said Voss at the start of the presentation, which was organized by the head of the VBKI Finance CommitteeKai Drabe, moderated the event. While in German the word "Schuld" means both personal and financial (in the sense of debt), the levels of meaning are separated in other languages. English, for example, has two words, "debt" and "guilt".

What are the reasons for the strained relationship with "filthy lucre"? Frank Bethmann wanted to find out exactly and asked numerous celebrities about these questions. In his book "Talking about money", Harald Schmidt and Gunter Gabriel, Sarah Wagenknecht and Jutta Speidel, Birgit Schrowange and Friedrich von Metzler, among others, give their very personal answers to a topic that concerns us all.

Frank Bethmann and Rainer Voss agreed on one thing: more needs to be done to teach children and young people in particular about money. From the age of 5, children understand the importance of money as a means of payment - "a magical substance". The two also called banks and financial service providers to account. Criticism: they do far too little to create clarity and transparency in financial products.

Rainer Voss entertained and informed the audience about various experiments relating to the handling of and relationship with money and told a few stories from the life of an investment banker before the 2008 crisis.