German bankers hug the walls and defer to one another, "After you, please." Above all, no one wants to be the first to ask for government assistance. The conditions Angela Merkel's government has established are so draconian they've incited Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann - who never misses a chance to put his foot in his mouth - to declare that he would be personally ashamed to have to request the federal government's billions.

    Managers' salaries capped at 500,000 Euros a year, bonuses prohibited, dividends reserved for the government only, the Finance Ministry to intervene in loan policy: without going so far as the partial nationalization in Great Britain, Berlin's requirements for those establishments that resort to its assistance are very significant.

    But it doesn't end there. Taking advantage of the climate of indignation, the great coalition is preparing a series of measures designed to squeeze the income of senior managers at Frankfurt Stock Exchange listed companies. With, as its strong point, the determination of senior executives' salaries by the Supervisory Board where workforce representatives sit by law.

    Somewhat aghast, economic leaders take in the rather brutal return of politics, so often derided. Germany is a year away from elections and Angela Merkel fears one thing only: government impotence such as led to the rise of populism and the extreme right in 1929.

    Bankers and big bosses could soon regret having disdained study of Machiavelli's "Prince." There, they would have learned that politics is first of all power relations, not a moral philosophy. Now they're no longer in a position to dictate their conditions. They would have also discovered in "The Prince" that, far from advising contempt for all forms of morality, Machiavelli recommended that one who wished to stay in power rely on the population by publicly respecting - at least in appearance - the moral rules on which the people agree.

    The lesson is certainly worth a few billions.

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    Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

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