In 2030, will America, “the Home of the Brave”, still be brave?

Sir, Philip Stephen concludes his “In tomorrow’s world, it’s the state versus the individual”, December 14, with observing that in order to reclaim powers lost to a more fragmented and globalized world, “governments will have to act in concert”. 

Indeed, but let us not also forget that acting in concert does not really mean that the results will be right. Just look at the massive mess was produced by one of the most important and concerted global efforts, that of regulating the banks and carried out through the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision. 

In fact, when in November 1999 in an Op-Ed I wrote “The possible Big Bang that scares me the most is the one that could happen the day those genius bank regulators in Basel, playing Gods, manage to introduce a systemic error in the financial system, which will cause the collapse, of the only remaining bank in the world” what I was referring to was precisely the possibility of regulators getting it wrong in a very concerted and therefore systemic way. 

One question I would like to ask the National Intelligence Council, since that will definitely determine much where the US will be in 2030 is the following: 

Their report “Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds” mentions: “Some analysts expect aging societies to be risk-averse … need to pay closer attention to creating sustainable pension and health-care programs in order to avoid long-term risks”. 

So, what could this mean to the willingness to take risks? Will the “Home of the Brave” be less brave? 

I mention this because the last decade I have been protesting how a senseless risk-adverseness, introduced by our baby boomer bank regulators into our banks, are making the banks create ever larger and dangerous obese exposures to “The Infallible”, and for the real economy equally dangerous anorexic exposures to “The Risky”, like the job creating unrated and not so good rated small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs. 

And this if unchecked will doom the economy of America (and of Europe) to stall and fall. 

Remember it was for very good reasons that, in our churches, we used to pray “God make us daring!”.