February 15, 2013

European youth is still unaware of how bank regulators block so much of their future.

Sir, Gillian Tett in “FISH becomes the European conundrum of US investors” February 15, refers to “a longer term sense of deep unease about the fundamental growth story, not just in the periphery of Europe, but in the core of eurozone too.”

And of course there are reasons to be much concerned. If bank regulators are allowed to stupidly clog the arteries of the financial system, and so that “The Risky”, those actors who operate on the margins of the real economy find it more difficult than usual to access to bank credit, the economy will stall and fall.

Lending to “The Infallible”, fiscal stimulus, quantitative easing or similar, are all great to make the economy grow, but that growth is based on fats and carbs and, in the absence of “The Risky”, those who provide the proteins,it will only lead to a flabbier and ever weaker economy.

Some colleagues of Gillian Tett will surely some decades from now pose the question: How come the western civilization suddenly became so panicky risk adverse so as to accept regulations which though it might give it a couple of more years of marginal growth, definitely doomed it to shrink away? How come this was not even discussed by the media?

I think they will find their answers in the prevailing dominance of a baby boomer generation flying irresponsible après nous le deluge colors.

Sincerely if the millions of unemployed European youth really came to know about the stupidity that is blocking so much of their future, I would not like to be in a bank regulators shoes, or in the shoes of those hushing it all up for that matter.