The problem with the sub-prime mortgages is just the tip of an iceberg.

Sir, Gillian Tett when saying that “Subprime proposals could broaden litigation risk all around”, April 13, she mentions at risk those who originate the lousy mortgages that have not considered sufficiently the debtors financial realities, the Wall Street banks that later repackage these in order to resell them to the public, even New York that might lose out in its standing as a financial center, but she does not yet mention the credit rating agencies who have been assigned most of the responsibility for certifying the quality of the final products. The fact that we live in a world were some credit analyst can rate a portfolio of mortgages without even thinking about leaving their desk and go for a field trip to check up on some of the actual individual real loans, points at one of the principal problems of the current bank regulation framework that has been coming out from Basel over the last decade, namely that of wanting to install a system that allows for monitoring from a distance, based on historical risks assessments, without having to get your feet dirty.

Sir, here and there, the financial world is being exposed to some extreme systemic risks, and it behooves us to be aware that this problem with the mortgages is just the tip of one of many icebergs.