When fighting inequality, in a sustainable way, it is more important to distribute opportunities than to redistribute income.

Sir Jonathan Ostry, a deputy director of the research department of the IMF holds that some recent research indicates that “Redistribution is associated with higher and more durable growth” “We do not have to live with the scourge of inequality” March 4.

Indeed that might be so but, before redistributing income, making sure opportunities are equally distributed, is much more important when fighting inequality, at least in a sustainable way.

For instance there are some ludicrous risk based capital requirements for banks that by favoring the “infallible sovereigns” the housing sector and the AAAristocracy, discriminate against the access to bank credit of “the risky”, mostly the medium and small businesses, the entrepreneurs and start-ups.

Unfortunately, both the World Bank and the IMF have been totally silent on this inequality driver for much too long.

If Ostry really wants to help out, then he should recommend IMF’s research department to look into the reasons for all major bank crisis in history. That research would be extremely helpful, since it would certainly indicate that the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision is going after the wrong “risky”.