Martin Wolf, as elite, why have you not spoken out against lousy bank regulators and redistribution profiteers?

Sir, Martin Wolf cries out: “Elites have become detached from domestic loyalties and concerns, forming instead a global super-elite. It is not hard to see why ordinary people… are alienated. They are losers, at least relatively; they do not share equally in the gains… After the financial crisis and slow recovery in standards of living, they see elites as incompetent and predatory. The surprise is not that many are angry but that so many are not… Elites need to work out intelligent responses. It might already be too late to do so” “The losers are in revolt against the elites” January 27.

Of course Wolf is absolutely right… but that requires the elite to be willing to call out the truth, even when that truth hurt other in their mutual admiration club of elites.

For instance, how can the elite gather in a Davos WEF event, year after year, and not tell central bankers and banks regulators in their face, that it is outright stupid to distort the allocation of bank credit to the real economy, especially based on credit risks already cleared for by banks.

For instance, has Martin Wolf himself dared to ask Mark Carney, Mario Draghi, Jaime Caruana, Stefan Ingves about why they believe ‘highly speculative’ below BB- rated assets pose more dangers to the banking system than those ex ante perceived as ‘prime’ AAA rated?

And what about “The wealth of 62 richest equals that of 3.6 billion poorest” message sent out this year by some “NGOs” to all those in Davos. Who said anything there about that being a deviously false and odiously divisive statement?

I do not claim to belong to any elite, especially not the wealthy elite, but, as a father and a grandfather, I know we cannot sit still and not do anything about the growing inequalities, whether the local or the global.

But I also know that if we are going to do something effective about it, we cannot afford to keep failed bank regulators blocking opportunities, or fall into the traps of redistribution profiteers.

December 31, 2009, on the eve of the new decade, FT published a letter I sent titled “The monsters that thrive on hardship haunt my dreams” In it I basically shared and expressed the same concerns Martin Wolf is expressing now. What happened?

@PerKurowski ©