February 20, 2013

What is wrong with Martin Wolf?

Sir, I have lately been rereading some of Martin Wolf’s comments and predictions of 2006-08, and I understand perfectly well why he, even when so very knowledgeable about many important economic issues, was then off the mark. Why should he really be aware of the dramatic distortions that were introduced by regulators into our banking system, through capital requirements for banks based on perceived risks already cleared for in other ways?

But, that now, February 20, 2013, years after the crisis detonated, he is able to write “Why the euro crisis is not yet over” and completely ignore that the eurozone, in fact all western world, finds it still trapped by regulations which holds them to the past, to what is perceived as “safe, and hinders them to bet on the future, on what is perceived as “risky”, well that I simply do not understand. What is wrong with him?

Wolf has complained on my writing excessively on this issue, and he could be right, but, frankly, when I see how much someone who has been granted the possibility to exercise so much influence so completely ignores how current bank regulations distort, and destroys our economies, what else can I do but to keep on writing?