October 03, 2014

With his track record I would not trust ECB’s Mario Draghi with a firecracker to help the real economy

Sir, you hold “Draghi’s colleagues should pass him the ammunition…outright [huge]purchases [by ECB] of asset backed securities and covered bonds”, and that “Criticism of Draghi’s action is misguided” October 3.

May I remind you that Mario Draghi, for years chair of the Financial Stability Board, is one of those responsible for while requiring banks to hold 8% in capital (equity) when lending a little to an SME, allowed banks to hold huge exposures, against a measly 1.6 percent in capital, only because these were perceived as "absolutely safe".

Sir, a central banker who allows banks to leverage their capital (equity) a mindboggling 62.5 times to 1 when buying AAA rated securities, or when lending to Greece; and who does not understand how risk-weighted capital requirements distorts credit allocations, is a central banker who might know a lot about many central banking issues, and Wall Street, but he sure has no idea about what really makes banks unstable, or about how money moves around on Main Street.

And so, when it comes to getting the real economy going, I would not even trust a firecracker to Draghi. In fact he and some of his bank regulatory colleagues, are some of those most stopping it.