January 21, 2015

An excessive risk aversion, an “Après nous le deluge”, is the bequest of what kind of generation?

Sir, I refer to John Kay’s “Inequality is the bequest of an unequal generation” January 21. To it, I would like to add the following:

Our forefathers’ central banks and bank regulators, unless they lived in dictatorships or in communist lands, never told banks who to lend or not to lend. And as a consequence banks took many risks that have played out right for us.

Our generation on the contrary, represented by the Basel Committee, by means of credit risk weighted equity requirements, are de facto instructing banks to stay away from what is perceived risky and to favor the access to bank credit of the “infallible” sovereigns, the AAArisktocracy and the housing sector. 

John Kay, that sissy and perfectly useless risk-aversion, and which like in neon lights screams out “Après nous le deluge”, makes us what kind of generation? 

I am sure that our grandchildren are going to pay dearly for our banks not lending sufficiently and in fair terms to small businesses and entrepreneurs... and once they understand what happened they will not be kind on the current generation of bank regulators.