July 23, 2014

A bank’s expected failure going from once in 1000, to once in 200 years, does not sound like an impressive improvement :-)

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Sir, Gina Chon refers to Steve Strongin, head of Goldman’s investment research division stating: “In the past the mean time for the failure...

CMA. Bank regulators have stopped “the risky”, like SMEs, from being able to compete fairly for bank credit.

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Sir, John Kay with respect to personal current account banking writes and conclude rightly in that “ In banking too much competition is as ...
July 22, 2014

IMF, forget it! Spain, for the time being, is incapable of ‘turning a corner’… for the better

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Sir, I refer to Tobias Buck’s “ Export-shaped cloud looms over Spain’s bright outlook ” July 22. In it he refers to that “The IMF this ...

When a banker reminds you of the importance of the simple things in life, you always worry a bit.

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Sir, it is always slightly worrisome when a banker, no matter how correct he might be, starts reminding you about the importance of the sim...
July 21, 2014

When you cut off economic buds from fair access to bank credit you cannot but get slim pickings in the job market

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Sir, I refer to James Politi’s report on US jobs “ Slim pickings ” July 21. When you have bank regulations which, by means of capital r...

Mark Carney, FSB, to begin, stop giving the Too-Big-To-Fail banks growth hormones.

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Sir I refer to Sam Fleming, Ben McLannahan and Gina Chon reporting “ BoE chief leads push to break ‘too big to fail’ impasse at G20 ”, July...

As a sanction why not increase the risk-weight of Russia when calculating the capital requirements for banks?

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Sir, Wolfgang Münchau writes that “ Europe must impose financial sanctions on Russia ” July 21, and among the possibilities for that he dis...

Eurozone cannot afford ill-targeted quantitative easing.

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Sir, I refer to your “ Eurozone needs quantitative easing ” July 21. No! It cannot handle more distortions. Before getting rid of the ...

Why are bank regulators obsessed with already used perceived credit risks and totally blind to job creation and Mother Earth?

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Sir, Lucy Kellaway asks “ Why we are more vocal about loo rolls that our jobs ” July 21. In the same vein I have for soon two decades a...
July 20, 2014

Britain could be against bankers, bank lobbyist and bank regulators… but should never be versus its banks.

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Sir I refer to Philip Augar’s “ Britain versus the banks ” July 19… what an unfortunate title. Augar writing about Alex Brummer’s “Bad ...
July 19, 2014

CNBC ask FT: Why do you keep mum about the regulatory distortion of the allocation of bank credit?

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Sir, John Authers relates pro and con comments about the Fed’s monetary policy made by Jim Cramer, Rick Santelli and Steven Liesman, in CNB...
July 17, 2014

Do the financial rights of creditors come before the sustainability vultures' rights of Mother Earth?

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Sir, Tim Smedley writes “The UK has a legal obligation to meet 15 percent of its energy demand from renewable resources by 2020” “ Sustaina...
July 16, 2014

Banks, tell me who your “absolutely infallible” are, and I will tell you who your “really risky” are.

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Sir, Thomas Hale, Christopher Thompson and Josh Noble report on that “most major Chinese banks have existing Tier-1 capital adequacy ratios...
July 15, 2014

Current bank regulators evidence a truly unpardonable lack of vision. Après nous, le water and jobs dry-spell.

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Sir, our young do not find jobs and could easily turn into a lost generation, and we are all facing “ A world without water ” and all our b...
July 14, 2014

Is a 3 dollar per ticket tombola, to meet president Obama, really a comme il faut political fund-driving mechanism?

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Sir I refer to the issue of fundraising raised by Edward Luce in “ A farewell to trust: Obama´s Germany syndrome ” July 14 Even though ...

Basel’s risk-weighted capital requirements for banks, is a macro-imprudential tool which blows financial bubbles.

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Sir, I refer to Wolfgang Münchau’s “ What central banks should do with bubbles ” July 14. My answer would be for central banks to make ...
July 12, 2014

And what do we call when targets are completely missed but still no one fires back?

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Sir, I refer to Tim Harford’s “ When targets backfire ” July 12 where he concludes in the importance of naming and shaming… providing an “e...

The genie in the Basel Committee’s Aladdin lamp… is as dumb as genies can come

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Sir, I had no idea of the existence of the “state of the art risk and order management system” described interestingly by Tracy Alloway in ...
July 11, 2014

Draghi’s “Whatever it takes” does not include admitting risk-weighted capital requirements for banks cause distortions

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Sir, Ralph Atkins reports on “businesses unable to tap capital markets – which includes job-creating small and medium sized enterprises”, “...
July 10, 2014

How do you price bank credit for sustainable growth having to consider both risk profiles and capital requirements?

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Sir, Axel Merk writes “sustainable growth comes from pricing credit correctly according to the risk profile of the borrowers, not merely ch...

Do we need to use force to make Mario Draghi and ECB to accept urgently needed structural reforms in bank regulations?

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Sir, Claire Jones and Peter Spiegel report that ECB’s Mario Draghi has called for Brussels to “ Use force to secure economic reform ” meani...
July 09, 2014

“Trust me, I am a bank regulator” is not enough either. They do not treat all of their customers fairly.

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Sir, John Kay describes well the difficulties of financial advisors to handle conflicts of interest in “ Trust me I am a financial advisor’...

Martin Wolf, sincerely, what is riskier, that some banks fail or that the planet fails?

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Sir, Martin Wolf, as he should be, is clearly concerned with climate change, and states the report “Risky Business” to be valuable in “that...

Old banking: “What do you intend to do with the money?” New banking: “How do I minimize the capital the bank needs to hold?

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Sir, Camilla Hall quotes a bank officer in that “loan growth [in the US] doesn't seem to be driven by the underpinning of an economic r...
July 08, 2014

EAB regulators should be fired; they don’t care one iota about the real economy, as long as banks don’t go under during their watch.

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Sir, Sam Fleming reports that in order to “limit inconsistencies between the practices of different supervisors” EBA will deploy “a regulat...
July 07, 2014

The labour pains of Europe are made worse, and permanent, by the risk-weighted capital requirements for banks.

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Sir, I refer to Sarah Gordon´s, Claire Jones´ and Peter Wise´s report on the eurozone unemployment “ Labor pains ” July 7. I just wish ...
July 05, 2014

Undercover Economist Harford, instead of "the volatility express" the rest of us we have, thanks to regulators, the volatility ball and chain.

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Sir, in October 2004, in a written formal statement at the World Bank, as an Executive Director, I warned : “We believe that much of the wo...

We must indeed fret the possibility of some fundamental lack of character at the Federal Reserve

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Sir, Henny Sender makes a well argued call in “The Federal Reserve must not linger too long on QE exit” July 5; concluding with opining tha...
July 03, 2014

Please, could somebody urgently brief Fed Chair Janet Yellen on the fact that there are different kinds of bubbles?

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Sir, Robin Harding reports that Janet Yellen holds that the Fed “is more interested in having a resilient financial system that can cope wh...

Facebook, I want to be happy. So if you make me sad, I will sue you!

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Sir, I refer to John Gapper article about the research Facebook has been carrying on whether our feelings can be influenced, “ We are the p...

Current bank fines paid in cash is judicial masochism. Fines should instead be paid in voting shares.

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Sir, I very much agree with Daniel Zuberbühler’s in that a much more constructive way of sanctioning the banks for misdeeds would be to inc...
July 02, 2014

Why does Martin Wolf keep mum about the horrendous mistakes with risk-weighted capital requirements for banks?

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Sir, until about two years ago I had written way over a hundred letters to Martin Wolf where I explained the profound mistakes of the risk...
July 01, 2014

No Mr. John Plender, it is the lousy risk weights corset imposed on banks by the Basel Committee which is strangling the sunlit banks.

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Sir, John Plender quotes Sir Charlie Bean of the BoE arguing “if lenders do find ways of moving activities outside the regulatory perimeter...

Regulators painted the banks into the dangerous corner of holding much of what is perceived as safe against little capital.

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Sir, Alberto Gallo notes “The irony is that the Fed is becoming trapped by its own policies. QE and low rates have helped to solve the bank...
June 30, 2014

Poor Shinzo Abe. Has no one told him Japan as a member of G10 also signed up on Basel II’s risk-aversion?

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Sir, Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister with respect to the goal of achieving economic growth in Japan writes: “We are restoring Japan’s ve...

Why does Wolfgang Münchau keep mum on the minimum minimorum Europe needs to do to lift itself out of its mess?

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Sir, again, last June 26 was the 10th anniversary of the G10 approving the absolutely senseless Basel II bank regulations .  And here w...
June 28, 2014

Becoming coward marks the beginning of the end of any civilization, and the Western World ignores what Basel II does

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Sir Peter Aspden quotes Emir Kusturica with: “I am a man with a lot of passion. I will always fight for peace. But, unfortunately, it is w...

Why does John Authers keep mum on how low capital requirements for banks on house financing helps to inflate the bubble?

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Sir last Thursday was the 10th anniversary of the G10 approving the absolutely senseless Basel II bank regulations. And here we are and sti...
June 27, 2014

No Gillian Tett, it was sordid practices in the world of bank regulations which caused the banks to implode.

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Sir, in “ Shine a light on the sharks that lurks in dark pools ”, June 27, Ms Tett writes that “since 2008 regulators have battled to make ...

To get balanced economic growth using risk-weighted capital requirements for banks would require a miracle.

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Sir yesterday, was the 10th anniversary of the G10 approving the absolutely senseless Basel II bank regulations . And here we are and still...
June 26, 2014

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Basel II, Europe´s economic Waterloo, or financial Kristallnacht, and FT does not care.

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Sir, on June 26, 2004 the G10 approved Basel II . With those regulations some few unelected regulators who felt they knew more about ri...
June 24, 2014

If banks use “big data”, which is good, regulators must stay away from it.

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Sir, I completely agree that banks should use all information available to make judgments on credit worthiness, as is described by Patrick ...

FT, please, don’t spill the beans about the risks of cocoa to the Basel Committee.

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Sir, Emiko Terazono quotes Derek Chambers of Sucres & Denrés saying “If you’ve got a piece of land, do you grow cocoa which needs a lot...
June 23, 2014

You in FT have more voice than most professors teaching finance, so who’s really more “responsible for teaching responsibility”?

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Sir, I refer to John Authers’ “ Who is responsible of teaching responsibility ” June 23, FT’s special “Business Education: Financial Traini...
June 21, 2014

For the banks to stay out of the shadows, their regulators must not hide in the shadows, or hide the sun.

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Sir, in your “ Banking must stay out of the shadows ” June 21, you hold that “Regulators are better equipped institutionally to monitor ris...

Sometimes it is very hard to collect the money you win betting on where your mouth is

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Sir, I refer to Tim Harford’s “ Money where your mouth is ” June 21. Suppose I had place money where my mouth was with the following: “...
June 20, 2014

A very simple question to all of you there at FT

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If you were a bank regulator, which rating would you use to set the capital requirements for banks? That of a borrower defaulting or that o...

Yes! Drag also bank regulators in front of a judge, to force them to answer one simple question.

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Sir, I refer to your “ A light shines on bank misconduct ” June 20. You are indeed right in that fighting these bank misbehavior cases in c...
June 19, 2014

And when are investors to sue Blackrock and Pimco because of these experts lack of due diligence?

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Sir, I read Camilla Hall and Luc Cohen reporting “ Six banks sued over trustee roles ” June 19. What­? If Pimco or Blackrock had had an...

Who brainwashed FT’s Sarah Gordon?

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Sir, Sarah Gordon writes “The relationships between local lenders and their clients … were often too cosy, with loans handed over without t...

Just like we do not like overly sissy nannies to educate our kids, we do not want overly sissy regulators to regulate our banks.

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Sir, Sam Fleming and Gina Chon begin by quoting David Wright, secretary general of Iosco saying “It is extraordinary that here we are, near...

Europe, ECB, if what FT writes is what IMF will recommend you… please don’t listen to it. They’ve lost it!

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Sir, Peter Spiegel and Claire Jones write that “IMF urges eurozone bond purchases” “primarily of sovereign assets” “to stimulate growth”, J...

BoE, of course prudential bank regulations is not everything, especially when totally imprudent

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Sir, Chris Giles writes “ The Old Lady is right that prudential policy is not everything ” June 19. Absolutely! And this is especially so w...

For sturdy long term stability we need lots of short term instability, and bank regulations which do not distort.

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Sir I refer to Paul Tucker´s “ Financial regulation needs principles as well as rules ” June 19, Sir, I do not care much for stability ...
June 18, 2014

The capital requirements for banks based on perceived risk, distort the correct risk pricing that the market might have done.

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Sir, Simon Johnson writes about the risk of “Concentrating risk with the laudable goal of reducing opaqueness”… “ Chaos is brewing behind ...

If the £30 million Rembrandt painting was John Kay’s, when would he worry about Piketty taxing it?

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Sir, John Kay writes about “The problem of finding fair value in fine art and finance” June 18. And, in doing so he gives us the exampl...

Mr. Martin Wolf, would not having a climate fix ruin investors even more?

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Sir, I do not understand Martin Wolf’s “ A climate fix would ruin investors ” June 18. If climate change warnings are for real, as Wolf say...
June 17, 2014

Europe, don’t you wish your banks had been shadow banks, or at least were shadow banks now?

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Sir, I refer to Patrick Jenkins’ and Sam Fleming’s analysis of shadow banks in Europe “ Into the shadows – Taking another path ” June 17. W...

How much safe sound private money can we really have before it really becomes just too dangerous?

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Sir, Paul McCulley writes “The crisis of the past decade was a reminder of the instability inherent in private money”, as if public money i...

In these globalized times, would you not want your flag to be a flag of convenience, flagged by many?

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Sir, what extraordinary interesting questions and suggestion of answers those of Janan Ganesh in “ Fly the flag for the liberal values that...