The Basel Committee for Banking Supervision is the stupidest and most failed oracle of our times

Dan McCrum writes about predictions, “How to grab hold of the conversation with a bold prediction” December 16.

Sir, I just want to notice, for the record, for the umpteenth time, that the risk weighted capital requirements for banks, more risk more capital – less risk less capital, are de facto a prediction by the regulators based on what they believe is the most dangerous for our banking system.

As is, from their desks, they predicted that what is ex ante perceived as risky, is risky ex post. Clearly that must be one of the stupidest and senseless predictions of our times.

Anyone with the slightest understanding of what happens on Main Street, would know that what poses dangers to the banking system is unexpected events, like devaluations, criminal behavior, or excessive exposures to what was ex ante perceived as safe but that ex post turned out very risky.

Sir, I’m sorry but I have to ask, since you seem to have swallowed that prediction hook, line and sinker, has anyone in FT’s establishment ever walked on Main Street?

Sir, you doubt it? Then dare ask the regulators the following questions and observe their silence.

@PerKurowski

We need banks that profit by taking reasoned risks; and that have capital to cover for a good chunk of the unexpected.

Sir, I refer to Dan McCrum’s and Thomas Hale’s “Stagnation saps enthusiasm for Europe’s banks” August 6.

It includes contradictory statements like “the financial architecture appears solid” and “most people accept there is enough capital in the system now. Not just investors, but regulators as well” with that of “a rounding error of just 1 per cent on European asset values would wipe out More than a third of European bank equity, the all-important number determining ability to absorb losses.”

The ex ante perceived risk-weighted capital requirements for banks has introduced total confusion into banking. Not only with respect of these having reasonable equity, but also with respect to their business. Over the last decades, banks have looked to maximize their returns on equity much more by reducing the capital required, than by analyzing gross risk/reward ratios as such. And that must come to an end.

First EBA’s recent stress tested European banks indicated that they were leveraged almost 24 to 1, and that makes them clearly undercapitalized, not so much in terms of the expected, but in terms of the unexpected, which is what bank equity should be there for.

And secondly, we urgently need banks to assume their more traditional role of earning their profits by taking reasoned risks in the real economy… that economy in which a unit of capital is a unit of capital, independently of it being invested in something safe or something risky.

To avoid risks, especially when currency does not carry negative interest rates, a mattress seems to suffice. And for the society (taxpayers) to support banks that make their profits by avoiding taking risks, and not by helping it to build future, is stupid.

Some tweet sized conclusions:

The last decades banks have earned huge returns on equity mostly by minimizing equity, that has to stop.

European banks are severely undercapitalized, not that much in terms of the expected, but in terms of the unexpected.

Banking should be about helping society to take risks, not avoiding these. For that mattresses suffice.

Bankers capable of reasoned audacity are magnificent. Equity reducing bankers, are, at best, absolutely tedious.

Just looking at their dumb risk-weighted capital requirements, bank regulators should be disgraced by society.

@PerKurowski ©

At what point do negative rates on government debt become absolutely incompatible with its zero % risk weight?

Sir, in reference to Dan McCrum’s “Fire up the printing presses for a useful jolt to the economy” August 5, this is what I have to say.

Government issues bonds, the public buy these, and central banks, wanting the economy to grow, then buy these from the public.

Then the public does not know what to do with that purchasing power given to them by the central banks and, wanting to play it “safe”, looks to buy government bonds, and so the interest rates on public debts goes further down.

And so then Martin Wolf and other recommend the government to take advantage of these low rates, in order to invest in infrastructure. And if government follows their advice, it will issue more bonds, and the public will buy these.

But since the economic punch from infrastructure investments vanishes quite fast if there are no one willing to use and pay the right price for it, the central banks will then buy more government bonds from the public… and on and on it goes.

And, to top it up, banks and insurance companies are told by their regulators: “If you do not buy 0% risk-weighted government bonds, then you have to cough up with more equity”. And so banks (and insurance companies and alike) buy more government bonds, and the rates on these keep falling and falling… where does it end?

At what point do negative rates become absolutely incompatible with a 0% risk weight? How much capital will banks then need to hold against government bonds? How do we get off this not at all merry merry-go-round?

And to top it up, meanwhile, if SMEs or entrepreneurs, those who could perhaps best help to get the real economy going, want the opportunity to a bank credit, banks are told that “since these clients are risky you need to hold more capital against their borrowings”. And so banks do not lend these clients the money, or, in order to compensate for the higher equity requirements, charge higher interest rates, making the “risky” riskier.

How the hell did we land in this hole? I know!

PS. With respect to their future pensions, are central bankers and regulators isolated from their decisions? Should they be?

@PerKurowski ©

We are suffering from a well-disguised creative financial statism of monstrous proportions.

Sir, Dan McCrum writes: “it seems so inherently weird for about a third of debt issued by governments in the developed world to be bought and sold at negative yields” “Negative rates reverse assumptions about financial decisions” April 15.

Not weird at all: a) take away all central banks purchases of public debt with QEs, which helped to keep the saving glut intact or even increase it; b) get rid of regulations that assign the lowest risk weights and thereby the lowest capital requirements for banks to the borrowings of the sovereign monarch; c) stop what McRum mentions about “pension funds and insurers [having to] buy safe government debt irrespective of the price; and d) stop central banks from paying negative returns… and you would not see public debt bought and sold at negative rates.

What we are really suffering from is a well-disguised and utterly creative and non-transparent financial statism of montrous proportions.

The cost of all that is partly borne by savers and future pensioneers, but primarily by our children and grandchildren since the real economy will not grow as it could, consequence of all the credit opportunities denied “the risky” SMEs and entrepreneurs

@PerKurowski ©