December 03, 2012

FT finally says “Basel Committee, screw you!”

And suddenly, out of the blue, without really explaining your reasons, you hold in relation to bank capital that “the Bank of England is right to argue that banks should not meet their capital shortfalls by simply pulling back from their domestic loans. This surely means setting absolute capital requirements not ratios”, “A warning flag for Britain’s banks” December 3. 

Though of course you cannot mean "setting absolute capital requirements" that has nothing to do with any ratio, whatever you now mean with all that of which I have been trying to illuminate you on for years and  around 900 letters, and which by the way could make interesting material for a “Me and FT” book, the fact is that the only real pillar of current bank regulations coming out from Basel in I, II, and III is capital requirements based on perceived risks. 

And so therefore, if I take the liberty to edit what you write, you are effectively saying “Basel Committee, screw you!” Welcome to the club FT! This is sort of new territory for you eh? Though I guess some of you will be saying you always thought so! 

PS. The Leveson Report is about how government should control media. Might not we also need a report on how media should control media?

PS. False hopes... more than 2 years later FT is yet not speaking out about the distortions produced by risk-weighted capital requirements.