ECB’s Peter Praet, seemingly solidary with deep-rooted pessimists, has no moral right to speak out against pessimism.

Claire Jones reports that Peter Praet, the member of the ECB’s top-ranking executive board responsible for economics said: “what worries me the most is that you have a sort of longer-term growth pessimism filtering through to expectations, and authorities in general have to be very attentive to this”, “ECB warns of ‘pessimism’ threat” November 18.

Frankly, are not capital requirements for banks based on perceived credit risks, and which are designed to make banks avoid taking risks on the “risky” and limiting themselves to financing the “absolutely safe”, an expression of profound pessimism? Of course it is. Optimism is equivalent to let’s go for it, even if its risky. And that is what Europe needs.

But, the problem Praet might have is that it must be difficult to discuss the distortions in credit allocation that that bank regulation causes, if your boss, Mario Draghi, as the previous chairman of the Financial Stability Board, is one of the most responsible for it.

My answer to Praet would be: You have to decide whether the future of your children and grandchildren is more important than yours. It is as easy (and as hard) as that!