August 15, 2013
Sir, banks are the main financial intermediaries in Europe and so let me ask you:
Do you believe that telling the eurozone banks: “Go and make your returns on equity financing what is safe, like sovereigns and the AAAristocracy, and forget about financing the risky, like medium and small businesses entrepreneurs and start ups”, would allow you to harbor any hopes of a sustainable growth and unemployment reduction?
I sure do not think so, but that is what bank regulators are de facto telling the banks, when allowing these to hold much less capital-equity, when lending to "The Infallible" than when lending to "The Risky".
And so, with respect to James-Fontanella-Khan’s question “Can the eurozone sustain its recovery?” August 15, the answer has to be “NO! Not with these bank regulators”
Of course, if you throw some trillions on the street, and people run there to “clean” it up, and you count that as growth and employment, you will get some better news, for a while, but clearly not sustainable.