January 22, 2015

Sir, is it not high time FT abandons its “Après nous le deluge" mode?

Sir, of the letters I wrote and which you published, before I was censored for the given reason that I wrote too many letters, that which gets the most attention in my blog is the one titled “Long-term benefits of a hard landing”.

In that letter I argued Why not try to go for a big immediate adjustment and get it over with? … This is what the circle of life is all about and all the recent dabbling in topics such as debt sustainability just ignores the value of pruning or even, when urgently needed, of a timely amputation.”

How sad it is that almost eight years later, after having basically wasted QE’s, Paul Serfaty still finds a valid reason to end his letter with “Bite the bullet. Reprice the assets. Write off the unpayable debt. Smite the unwary. Start again with a new confidence that there is an upside”, “QE monster has regulators and markets alike transfixed” January 22.

Sir, look back at what your columnists have written over the last eight years, and you will find that most of it has to do with kicking the can down the road, by means of QEs, fiscal deficits and much other… all having us climb ever higher, that mountain of excessive liquidity, unsafe excessive price of “safe assets” and excessive sovereign debt, from which we must come down from, sooner or later.

Frankly Sir, is it not high time FT abandons its “Après nous le deluge” mode?