The AAA pattern is extremely dangerous.

Sir, John Authers in “The Long View”, July 11, quotes Benoit Mandelbrot (who at least I never heard about before) calling the bubbles and crashes “the inevitable consequence of the human need to find patterns in the patternless”. One is left with the question of whether our financial regulators are not supposed to know that sort of stuff when they regulate. At least I always complained how the regulators were developing their own dangerous patterns... the just follow the AAAs.

The capital requirements for banks as determined by the Basel Committee in Basel II requires a bank to hold 1.6 percent in capital when lending to a corporation rated AAA to AA, and 12 percent when lending to a client rated below BB- .

Sir, how many bank crisis have you seen happening because banks have lend too much to AAA or AA rated clients who later turned out not to merit those ratings? All! And how many crisis have you seen happening because the banks lend too much to those rated BB-? None! If so, can you please explain what the regulators were thinking? If anything, would it not seem that the inverse of these capital requirements would be more valid?

Why should a poor BB-rated company, who surely must find it very difficult and expensive to raise finance, on top of it all, have to pay the banks an additional compensation in order to make up for the competitive advantages awarded by the regulators to the much more dangerous AAAs?