September 13, 2014

FT, why do you suggest Eurozone should follow faulty visionaries like Mario Draghi?

John Kenneth Galbraith, perhaps in all of his books, writes about how we so often, perhaps always, fall into the trap of in awe believing that having a big fortune or holding really important posts in the world of banking, goes hand in hand with great knowledge on economic and financial matters.

That came to mind when I read your mindboggling favoring title “Draghi’s vision for Eurozone growth” September 13.

Vision? What vision, for ECB to inject hundred of billions of euros buying the least risky tranches of some asset-backed-securities, for the governments to take on debt and spend more freely, and for some countries to do some structural reform in the labor markets? Is that a vision? No way Jose!

Clearly the above could help to create some growth, but it would only be of an illusive type of obese growth, which leads to nothing sustainable, which instead requires to be sustained at all time, and which is never to be able to repay what finances it.

For sturdy muscular growth to have the slightest chance to return, the Eurozone, like other, must remove that huge boulder that lies in the way of banks being able to efficiently allocate bank credit to the real economy, namely the risk adverse credit risk weighted capital requirements for banks.

Mario Draghi, as a former chairman of the Financial Stability Board, is one of those directly responsible for the absurd vision that by allowing banks to earn much higher risk adjusted returns on assets perceived as absolutely safe than on assets perceived as risky, all would be fine and dandy. That just ended up with too much credit to sovereigns like Greece, and too little credit to Greek small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Sir, have you not seen enough of where these faulty pipers of the Basel regulations have lead us, so as to insist we should keep follow their “visions”? FT, wake up, have no fear!