5 January 2011. Yesterday the Dutch Minister of Finance Jan Kees de Jager and the Minister of Security and Justice Ivo Opstelten declared that they are preparing a law to stop people to create a bankrun.
Cause of this was Pieter Lakeman who warned savers with Dirk Scheringa Bank (DSB) to withdraw their money, because the bank wasn’t working according to the rules of the Nederlandse Bank (DNB), the Dutch national bank and for years was selling inferiour bankproducts and they knew. This way they ruined the lives of thousands and thousands of families, loosing all their money.
This caused a bankrun in which people withdrew 600 million euro within a short period of time, This incident was the beginning of the bankruptcy of DSB.
Pieter Lakeman reacted that this legislation is insane. Of course he sees the consequences coming for him personnaly, if in future he does this again with another financial institution.
The question now is what is more important, the interest of the state or the interest of people that saved their money in a bank and is the interest of the state more public interest then the interest of the public/consumers/savers in general?
To me it is obvious that our two politicians have to work in the interest of the state and so they do. The strange thing is that they sell this intervention as being in the public interest. The question is which public interest?