'Monster' Markets Brought World to Edge: German Prez

Germany's president, a former head of the International Monetary Fund, blasted the system of financial markets responsible for the global credit crisis as a “monster," Der Speigel reports today. Horst Köhler said the world “came close to a collapse of the global financial markets" as the system "greatly disgraced itself in pursuit of profit.

"The over-complexity of the financial products, and the possibility of carrying out large leveraged deals with a small amount of capital, have allowed the monster to grow,” said Köhler in joining a long line of German pols ripping capitalist excess. (More Horst Kohler stories.)