Pulling out their favorite charm cannon Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück himself, the Germans have begun battering neighboring offshore financial center states like Switzerland after launching a surprise ravaging verbal abuse offensive.

Hoping to recover unpaid taxes in vicious hand-to-hand or at least toungue-to-tongue combat (yuk), Steinbrück has lambasted the small, defenseless, filthy rich neutral country for being a safe haven for thousands of rebel German fiscal terrorists who have stashed away their savings there for some mysterious reason that nobody here in Berlin can even begin to explain, much less figure out.

Steinbrück has even openly “doubted” Swiss promises to make their banking system more transparent, initiating a further diplomatic scandal between the two nations. Other than the surprise ravaging verbal abuse offensive part, I mean. The Swiss Foreign Ministry has actually summoned the German ambassador to protest the “unacceptable” remarks by Steinbrück. But this was long after the offensive started so like who cares?

That offshore financial centers like Switzerland have nothing to do with the problems created by cash-strapped governments like Germany impresses Herr Steinbrück little as they are nevertheless easy targets to bash at the moment and this gracefully distracts from the current political paralysis in Berlin concerning all things having to do with the financial crisis, or at least with all things having to do with the financial crisis and international solidarity.

„Er erklärt, wieso die Eidgenossen Bundesfinanzminister Peer Steinbrück (SPD) für einen hässlichen Deutschen halten.“