Draft rules to scale back banker bonuses were enough to prompt a public spat yesterday between Deutsche Bank co-Chief Executive Officer Juergen Fitschen and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble as the two men sat side-by-side on a panel discussing finance regulation in the Bundestag in Berlin.

Schaeuble was the first to answer a query, summarizing a plan by the European Union to limit variable pay to twice the value of base salaries. Fitschen, who eased into an extended critique, contended that such limitations could squelch hiring in certain markets.

“Do you imagine that you can successfully compete in dynamic emerging markets if the German economy minister tells you how much you can pay your top executives in China or Russia?” Fitschen asked a room of legislators and financial experts at the meeting, hosted by the parliamentary caucus of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU-led bloc. “You can’t build a leading position with second- and third-tier people.”

The normally unflappable Schaeuble, who has been bound to a wheelchair since being shot in the back during a campaign event 23 years ago, raised his voice in response.

“The next crisis of this magnitude won’t just cost us our market economy system, but our western democracy as well,” he said. “Those who know that must take the debate a bit more seriously than to say it’s tough to find employees in emerging markets.”

Original post is Banker-Bonus Rules Stoke Tempers in Berlin by Euro Crisis.

Photographer: Suzanne Plunkett/Bloomberg News

Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, on Friday, Jan. 26, 2007.

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Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the world’s biggest securities firm, awarded Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein a record $67.9 million bonus in 2007 as mortgage losses drove his counterparts at Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns Cos. to forgo year-end payouts.

Europe’s debt crisis only seems like it has gone on forever. This series of blog posts looks at headlines from this date in previous years that highlight the roots, twists and turns of the current turmoil.

Original post is Today in Euro Crisis History: And the Band Played On by Euro Crisis.

Photographer: Kostas Tsironis/Bloomberg

The headquarters of Greece's central bank in Athens, on May 17, 2012.

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Europe’s debt crisis only seems like it has gone on forever. This series of blog posts looks at headlines from this date in previous years that highlight the roots, twists and turns of the current turmoil.

Original post is Today in Euro Crisis History: Call of the Millennium by Euro Crisis.