November 14, 2008

Some questions to the Masters of the Risks

Sir to anyone like Mario Draghi who in “A vision of a more resilient global economy”, November 14, seems to believe that making the credit rating agencies better at what they do would take care of their part of the problem, I would ask the following questions. 

What could be riskier, a credit about which an “expert” holds to be low-risk, which could lead banks to lower their guard, or a credit that because it has been perceived as being high-risk will probably be more carefully analyzed?

Could that not point to higher capital requirements for low risk credits and lower capital for higher risk, just the opposite of what the minimum capital requirements for banks now order? Is there not a big risk that the market instead of measuring the risks directly begins to measure the risks of a change of opinion of the risk setters? Do we then need agents to rate the credit rating agencies? And so on? 

Why do you think that solely by measuring the risk of default, without taking into account anything with respect to what could be the purpose of the credit, that this would put the world on a better track? Instead of having few credit rating agencies doing the job for the banks is it not better to give many banks full responsibility over their decisions?

Who ever told you that you had it in yourselves to be the Masters of the Risks? Who elected you?