November 22, 2013

Mario Draghi has no moral right to speak about discrimination among Europeans

Stefan Wagstyl reports that Mario Draghi, reacted against “nationalistic undertones” and stated “We are not German, neither French nor Spaniards, nor Italian: We are Europeans”, “Draghi hits at rate policy critics”, November 22.

Sir, Mario Draghi has no moral right to speak about discrimination among Europeans. As the chairman for many years of the Financial Stability Board, he approved of that banks need to hold much much less capital when lending to an “infallible” European than when lending to a “risky” one.

That caused of course banks to avoid lending to those were they could leverage their equity much much less, and thereby not obtain the high expected risk-adjusted returns on their equity the “infallible” offered them.

Talk about exclusion! Talk about increasing inequality gaps! Go home Mario Draghi! Europe was not built upon risk-aversion!