How can a statement issued by one of The-Not-Accountable, ECB’s Mario Draghi, be a “bold statement”?

Sir, Robin Harding and Claire Jones quote Mario Draghi with: “Now, as the banking sector is progressively cleaned up and the deleveraging process reaches its conclusion, banks will have new balance sheet capacity to lend, and our monetary policy will become even more effective”, “Draghi signals further action to prevent fall into deflation” October 10.

What is Draghi talking about? Has he not seen FDIC’s Thomas Hoenig’s recent “GlobalCapital Index” for the larger banks? Most of the banks in his Europe are still leveraged between 25 to 30 times to 1. 

Banks are still searching for strengthening their balance sheets by running to everything that requires them to hold less capital (equity). Unless the risk-weighted capital requirements for banks change, they will not be able to help any monetary policy to become more effective. 

And when Draghi states: “I expect credit to pick up soon next year”, your reporters qualify that as “a bold declaration”. What’s bold about that? Do they really think that Draghi will be held to that and fired if he is wrong? If there was any sort of accountability after the Basel II fiasco, Draghi, as the former chairman of the Financial Stability Board, would be long gone, not promoted to the ECB.