A good slogan for any candidate would be: “Make the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, Free and Brave again”

Sir, I refer to Gillian Tett’s discussion on the importance in politics of good slogans “Make slogans great again” October 1.

I do not consider myself a slogan maker, but I sure know that the much more than a slogan slogan I would most like to see, is “Make the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, Free and Brave again”

That is because bank regulators, with their dangerously stupid risk weighted capital requirements for banks attacked the very core of the American spirit, namely the willingness to take risks and the equal access to opportunities for all.

Sir, after hundreds of letter on this I do not feel the need to expand more on it… some aide memoires should suffice.

@PerKurowski ©

Risk weights of 0% government and 100% private sector… in “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave”?

Sir, Gillian Tett writes: “Every nation needs a unifying idea. Americans love to see themselves as champions of free markets and entrepreneurial zeal — and have long been more welcoming to entrepreneurs than has most of the western world”, “The land of free markets, tied down by red tape”, July 31.

And Tett gives some examples business regulations that show how “champions of free markets and entrepreneurial zeal” might not be completely applicable to the America of today. I have a much more extreme example:

In 1988 the US signed up the Basel Accord, which for the purpose of setting the capital requirements for banks, defined the risk-weights to be zero percent for the government, because it is considered safe, and 100 percent when lending for the private sector, because it is considered risky. That clearly distorts the allocation of bank credit in favor of the government and against the private sector.

So could Gillian Tett, or anyone else, please explain to me how that fits the notion of “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave”?

@PerKurowski

What’s the use of splendid arteries in the US if its heart does not pump?

Sir, you again express concern about that “US infrastructure is crumbling” May 1, and that is very nice of you. But, considering you are the Financial Times, and not the Bridge Construction Times, should you not better concentrate on how the heart of the financial system, the banks, in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, is pumping less and less of that true risk-taking needed in order to keep the economy moving forward, in order to have something to transport on those bridges?

Again, just as a reminder, in case you’ve forgotten: capital requirements for banks which allow banks to earn much higher risk-adjusted returns when lending to “the infallible” than when lending to “the risky” is pure bad heart attack provoking cholesterol.

PS. You refer to a bill drafted by John Delaney that would give US companies a tax break on any repatriated foreign earnings invested in US infrastructure… have you asked yourself in what assets those profits are currently invested and had to be liquidated in order to do that?

Yes, America, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, is suffering some serious mutations.

Sir, Edward Luce is absolutely right writing about “America’s compulsive urge to regulate” April 28. It would suffice with reading all those mindboggling, never less than two dozen, of safety instructions stapled around those American swimming pools from which you are extracted, every half hour, for a water quality check.

And when it comes to incongruities with “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave” it suffices to know that in America too… by means of risk-weighted capital requirements banks are allowed to earn much higher risk-adjusted returns on shareholders capital, when lending to the “absolutely safe” than when lending to the “risky”

Basel regulations should be anathema to “the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave”

Sir Tom Braithwaite and Patrick Jenkins report that JPMorgan chief says bank rules are “anti-American”, September 12. Jamie Dimon is more right than he probably knows, and, also, the anti-Americanism of Basel regulations, started long before Basel III. Just consider the following: 

By allowing banks to leverage more their capital when earning the risk-adjusted-interest-rate from those perceived as “not-risky” than when earning the same rate from those perceived as “risky”, regulators introduced a silly and unproductive risk-adverseness that is not compatible with “the Home of the Brave” 

Allowing banks to leverage immensely more their capital when lending to sovereigns like the USA government, than when lending to American small businesses and entrepreneurs, is communism, and absolutely not compatible with “the Land of the Free”