January 10, 2024

Mr. Martin Wolf, what do you mean, is liberalism not broken?

Sir, I refer to “Liberalism is battered but not yet broken” Martin Wolf, FT January 10, 2024.

Since 1988, with Basel I, non-elected by the citizens bank regulators, with risk weighted bank capital requirements, in the name of making our banks safe, have allowed themselves to distort the allocation of bank credit to the economy. 

Wolf opines: “What liberals share is trust in human beings to decide things for themselves.” So, Mr. Wolf, why have you been silent on this clear breach of free market liberalism?

These days, in reference to the farmer’s protests in Berlin I have tweeted/Xd: “Would now John F. Kennedy have wanted to deliver his 1963 ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ speech? - If the Berlin Wall was still up, would Ronald Reagan now have needed to tell Putin, ‘Tear down this wall’?”

My answer in both cases is NO! US and Russia – West and East Berlin, have been too long exposed to communistic weakening. But it’s coming to an end. More and more nations now need more public debt in order to service their current public debts, and are thereby, de facto, becoming zombie nations.

I pray someone with real political standing would dare to stand up and order: “Basel Committee, tear down your regulations.” I fear that might not happen until this “wall” has crumbled on its own. Those regulations have empowered bureaucracy autocracies, and way too many want to be members or beneficiaries of it. And by the way, if they speak up, they risk not being invited to the World Economic Forums in Davos; and we would not want to risk that, would we?


PS. I tweeted - Xd: "If there’s anything that could help focus on what has happened in the world, and on what’s going on, that is to have a record of all those who, since 1971, have assisted World Economic Forum #WEF meetings in #Davos."