Rod Stewart, it would be hard for you to find your way back home, it has been castrated.

Sir, Martin Wolf opines: “The battle over Brexit matters to the world” February 10. But does that matter the most to Britain?

Rod Stewart in “Way Back Home” remembers his childhood with: “And we always kept the laughter and the smile upon our face. In that good-old-fashion British way with pride and faultless grace”

And his song ends with Winston Churchill reciting in the background: “We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender”

But Rod, for your info, Churchill’s England has indeed surrendered to risk aversion, thanks to its bank regulators.

In Britain the banking sector represented so much. And just to think about the reasoned and astute daring of their merchant banks should make any Britt proud.

But you have a Britain that now allows foreign bank regulators in the Basel Committee, to allow its banks to hold less equity against what is perceived as safe than against what is perceive as risky; and therefore Britain now allows its bankers to make higher expected risk adjusted profits when lending to “the safe” than when lending to “the risky”; which of course is de-testosteronizing, or outright castrating Britain’s banks.

Therefore much more important for Britain than a Brexit, is a Baselexit, which means ignoring all those regulators who ignore that: “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are for.” John Augustus Shedd, 1850-1926

@PerKurowski ©