Political Control of The State Bank
Although the State Bank was always politically subordinate to the G.D.R. government, this was made explicit by a law of 19 December 1974 which defined the State Bank as an organ of the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic and formalised the practice of the Bank’s president being a member of the Council of Ministers. While this stood in stark contrast to the political independence of West Germany’s Bundesbank it was common during this era for there to be political control over the nation’s Central Bank-–though not usually to the extent found in East Germany and the other Eastern Bloc economies, where the polices and technical operation of the Central Bank were completely subservient to policies of the governing Socialist Unity Party of Germany.
The State Bank of the GDR was also a member of the International Bank for Economic Co-operation, a Comecon organisation founded in 1957 with its headquarters in Moscow. The nominal currencies used for trading, international clearing and settlement purposes by this organisation were transfer roubles and gold reserves.
Read more about this topic: Staatsbank
Famous quotes containing the words political, control, state and/or bank:
“I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgement, will probably for ever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I ... am in favour of the race to which I belong having the superior position.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“If someone does something we disapprove of, we regard him as bad if we believe we can deter him from persisting in his conduct, but we regard him as mad if we believe we cannot. In either case, the crucial issue is our control of the other: the more we lose control over him, and the more he assumes control over himself, the more, in case of conflict, we are likely to consider him mad rather than just bad.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“A state of war or anarchy, in which law has little force, is so far valuable, that it puts every man on trial. The man of principle is known as such, and even in the fury of faction is respected.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... an adamantine island chained to the shifting bank of the Channel.”
—Christina Stead (1902–1983)