Had our current bank regulators been instructed by robots, we might not be in this mess

Sir I refer to Jeevan Vasagar’s “My first robot” July 13.

Why do I argue the possibility indicated in the title? Because perhaps robots could have been able to help their students to shake off sentimentalities and primal emotions a bit more, and taught for instance our regulators that what is risky for banks, is not what they also intuitively could feel to be risky to our banks, but quite the opposite.

What is fervently believed safe, like something with an AAA rating, is what can cause banks to generate excessive and dangerous exposures; on the contrary, what is believed risky, as something rated below BB-, is what bankers won’t touch with a ten feet pole.

But what did the regulators educated by humans do? In Basel II they assigned a risk weight of 20% to what is AAA rated, and one of 150% to the below BB- rated.

And so we would not ended up with a 2007-08 crisis caused by an excessive exposure to AAA rated bonds and sovereigns like Greece; and we would not be suffering a slow response to all QE and low interest stimuli, caused by the lack of loans to “risky” SMEs and entrepreneurs.

@PerKurowski

Those willing to cut a deal with the real owners of limited attention spans for ads, will come out ahead.

Sir, I refer to Jeevan Vasagar and Robert Cookson’s report “Axel Springer winning fight against ad-blockers” November 4,

And on Axel Springer’s website I found that: “Axel Springer finds the business model of ad-blocker services to be unlawful. This applies to both the blocking of advertising on publishing websites as well as to the ’whitelisting’ service, which publishers can pay for to free themselves of the advertising block, which is an extortionate approach according to Axel Springer.”

And I was left wondering… why is it unlawful to block the way into my limited attention span and not to enter into it?

So now, if we want to have access to BILD we have to accept the ads, or subscribe to it paying 2.99 Euros per month. Hold it there; is not my limited attention span worth anything?

I have figured out that I have about room for 64 30-second ads per week which makes about 256 per month. And I have decided that my using up that limited attention span should be worth about 1 Euro for any 30-second ad to me; on which I would accept to pay a 30 percent commission for managing my preferences.

And so now my calculations are: First is access to BILD worth 3 Euros per month to me, and, if so, should I pay BILD in cash, or with 3 30-seconds attention spans?

But what if BILD cheats and wants to pump more pieces of attention spans out of me?

And so here’s my proposal. BILD if you have an article I am interested in, and I read it, then I will look, with interest, at any 30 second ad you send me. And, if you sell that to a client who is sufficiently interested in me to pay me 1 Euro, you can keep 30 percent of it, in order to split it any which way you want between yourself and the writer of that article.

And then of course I am going to rank how well BILD is my interests and my need of intellectual diversity.

Current business model are based on the assumptions that we the recipients of ads have unlimited attention span and that is simply not true… you should look at my inbox even after the span filter has done its job.

I foresee throat-cutting competition for attention spans for ads, and those cutting a deal with the owners of it will come out ahead.

And if the BILDs of the world do not want to make that kind of deal with us ad viewers, I am sure many ad-blockers– duly authorized by us – would love to do so.

And Sir, any good results BILD is reporting now, are as pyrrhic as can be.

@PerKurowski ©

Berlin, are there no more urgent sustainability needs to serve in Europe than having Volkswagen recall 8.5m diesel cars?

Sir, Jeevan Vasagar and Chris Bryant report “Berlin forces VW into mandatory recall of up to 8.5m diesel cars across Europe” October 16. Why on earth would Berlin do a dumb thing like that?

What will that cost? Are there no more urgent needs to serve in Europe than recalling diesel cars?

Is it because the hurt inept emissions controllers who were cheated now want revenge? A lover’s spat?

How does the world benefit from forcing VW into mandatory recall of up to 8.5m diesel cars across Europe?

What will that cost? Is Europe really so buoyant that it can pay for an 8.5m diesel cars recall across Europe?

Is recalling these cars the most effective way to cut emissions that pollute, and to help the earth’s sustainability?

How much useful research could not be funded with what is to be wasted on the recall of 8.5m diesel cars?

Frankly if you want to punish Volkswagen without punishing other don’t recall cars give the diesel car owners, or other, some Volkswagen shares instead.

Sir, as a reminder, here is a previous letter on that.

@PerKurowski ©