Who could have thought the Financial Times would come to this?

The Basel Committee concocted some minimum capital requirements for banks based on risk assessments made by the credit rating agencies which establish for instance that if a bank lends money to a corporation with no rating it requires 8 percent of equity but if it lends to a corporation with an AAA to AA- rating then it only needs 1.6% of capital.

The above set in motion forces that over only some 3 years helped to channel around two trillion dollars, some 100 years worth of World Bank lending, to finance badly awarded mortgages to the subprime housing sector in the US just because these managed to dress up as AAA and which detonated the current crisis.

Sir given that among the seven recommendations for better financial regulations you make in “Last chance saloon”, June 15 , you do not mention that the regulators should stop interfering arbitrarily in the risk allocation mechanism of the market I guess you are alright with it. Who could have thought the Financial Times would come to this?