What if a Basel Committee had regulated the payouts of casinos?

Sir, in “The risks of fund­ing states via casi­nos” FT, July 3, Martin Wolf writes: “In the run-up to the GFC, the dom­in­ant form of lend­ing was to the private sec­tor, particularly in the form of mort­gages.”

The dominant form of lending was indeed mortgages but that obscures the truth of what really happened.

Mortgages to the subprime sector were packaged into securities which, if obtaining an AAA to AA rating could, thanks to 2004 Basel II, be held by US investment banks and European banks against only 1.6 percent in capital, meaning they could leverage 62.5 times with these. 

As should have been expected, the temptation to package MBS sausages with the worst ingredient, which maximizes profits when then able to sell these as made with pure tenderloin, proved irresistible.

Sir, how long will FT keep being obsessed with minimizing the distortions of the Basel Committee’s risk weighted bank capital requirements?

Casinos? Ask Mr. Wolf whether he believes there would be any casinos left if its regulators ordered these to make higher payouts on safer bets, e.g., red or black than on riskier ones, e.g., a number?

https://subprimeregulations.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-basel-ii-roulette-manipulation.html

How much transparency can democracy handle?

Sir, Martin Wolf writes: “The more com­plete the set of rights, the more potent will be the con­straints: there will then also be open debate, free­dom to protest, free media and independent insti­tu­tions.” “Democracy is still bet­ter than auto­cracy” FT April 3.

Twenty-five years ago, when my homeland Venezuela was launched into discussions about a new Constitution, in several Op-Eds, I opined the following:

“It is said that Democracy with hunger is not Democracy, but if this is true, Democracy without information is even much less Democracy. In the constitution I want, I consider a citizen's right to information about government management to be of vital importance.”

Sadly, nothing came out of it. But, last year, I sat down to chat with ChatGPT about how artificial intelligence A.I. could empower us citizens to enjoy a more significant democracy. It answered positively in many ways.

So, e.g., what if A.I. was able to report real time – 24/7 the earmarks are handed out by US Congressmen?

Sir, I ask, can democracy handle such transparency?

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?

Sir, how can we make sure to capitalize on the opportunity of artificial intelligence helping to empower a citizens’ democracy? I mean before AI regulators decide to send it to Gulag too.

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."

#AI ChatGPT - OpenAI: A question on behalf of FT and Martin Wolf.

 In "Britain needs a growth strategy" Martin Wolf mentions the UK has for too long settled for managing stagnation.

On behalf of FT and Martin Wolf I decided to ask ChatGPT:

"Could bank capital requirements that favors “safe” government debt and residential mortgages over “risky” loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs, doom a nation to stagnation?"

ChatGPT answered:

"The impact of bank capital requirements on economic growth is a complex and debated topic among economists. Capital requirements are regulations set by financial authorities that determine the amount of capital a bank must hold in relation to its assets. These requirements are designed to ensure the stability of the financial system by reducing the risk of bank failures.

If capital requirements heavily favor "safe" assets such as government debt and residential mortgages over "risky" loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs, it can potentially have both positive and negative effects on the economy.

Potential Positive Effects:

Financial Stability: By incentivizing banks to invest in safer assets, capital requirements can contribute to financial stability. This reduces the likelihood of bank failures, which could have broader systemic consequences.

Investor Confidence: Investors and depositors may feel more secure knowing that banks are holding assets that are considered safer, leading to increased confidence in the financial system.

Potential Negative Effects:

Stifling Innovation and Growth: If banks are discouraged from lending to small businesses and entrepreneurs, it could hinder innovation and economic growth. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are often drivers of job creation and economic dynamism.

Inequality: Focusing on "safe" assets may exacerbate economic inequality. Small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs, which are crucial for innovation and job creation, might face difficulty accessing the necessary funding.

Reduced Economic Diversity: A banking system overly concentrated on certain types of assets may lead to reduced economic diversity. This can make the economy more vulnerable to shocks in specific sectors.

Long-Term Stagnation: Overemphasis on "safe" assets might lead to a lack of risk-taking and investment in new ventures, potentially resulting in long-term economic stagnation.

Balancing Act:

It's crucial for financial regulators to strike a balance between stability and promoting economic growth. Prudent capital requirements that consider the riskiness of assets, while still allowing banks to support economic development, can be important. Striking the right balance often involves ongoing adjustments to regulations based on economic conditions and lessons learned from past experiences.

In conclusion, while capital requirements that favor "safe" assets can contribute to financial stability, an excessive focus on them at the expense of riskier but potentially innovative investments could indeed have negative consequences for a nation's economic dynamism and growth. The challenge lies in finding a regulatory framework that mitigates risk without stifling entrepreneurial activity and economic progress."

Thanks!

ChatGPT answered: You're welcome! If you have any more questions or if there's anything else I can help you with, feel free to ask. Happy to assist!

Note: The answers are copied exactly from those given to me by OpenAI

Here my many other questions to ChatGPT – OpenAI on bank regulations

Comment: Way back, 2009, Martin Wolf was kind to publish in his Economic Forum an articled I titled "Please free us from imprudent risk aversion and give us some prudent risk-taking." I stand by it more than ever.

To stand a chance, UK must refrain from imprudent risk-aversion and embrace some prudent risk-taking.

Sir, I refer to Martin Wolf’s “The UK’s future depends on improving economic performance” FT, April 15 2023. 

Wolf at the end of it recommended the UK to “reform its pension system, in order to generate more risk-taking capital, create dynamic new businesses.” Why does Wolf not even mention the UK's banks?

From mid 1979 until mid 1980 I practiced at Kleinwort Benson, one of the truly old English Merchant Banks that has since then, as so many others, gone down, disappeared by globalized Basel Committee bank regulations. With the risk weighted bank capital (equity) requirements, knowledgeable and experienced loan officers were substituted by creative equity-minimizing / leverage-maximizing (dangerously creative) financial engineers.

October 2009, in his Economist Forum, Martin Wolf published my: “Please free us from imprudent risk-aversion and give us some prudent risk taking” It began it with “There is not one single reason to believe the world would be a better place because our financial regulators provide additional incentives to those who, perceived as having a lower risk of default, are already favored by lower interest rates, or punish further those who, perceived as more-risky, are already punished by higher interest rates. In fact, the opposite is most likely truer”

Sir, when comparing government debt and residential mortgages with loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs, in terms of how nutritive they could be for the economy, it is not that outlandish to describe it as demand-carbs vs supply-proteins.

In “Credit Suisse: the rise and fall of the bank that built modern Switzerland” FT, March 24, Owen Walker and Stephen Morris write the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt, later rebranded as Credit Suisse, was born out of Alfred Escher’s determination to develop a railway network across the Alpine nation that would link northern and southern Europe. 

Sir, would that Alpine railroad have been built, with a Basel Committee imposing risk weighted bank capital/equity requirements with decreed weights 0% government, 30% residential mortgages and 100% risky projects? 

Would the banks in the City of London have reached the stars with such regulations?

Sir, dare ask Martin Wolf to dare answer that.

@PerKurowski

Are British authorities more aware of risks than those in the US? Martin Wolf, dare find out.

Sir, Martin Wolf writes “The best pro­tec­tion against occa­sional huge bank­ing crises is fre­quent smal­ler ones.” “The UK must learn its own les­sons from the bank­ing crisis” FT April 3, 2023.

I could not agree more. During a World Bank workshop on Basel II in 2003, I opined:

“There is a thesis that holds that the old agricultural traditions of burning a little each year, thereby getting rid of some of the combustible materials, was much wiser than today’s no burning at all, that only allows for the buildup of more incendiary materials, thereby guaranteeing disaster and scorched earth, when fire finally breaks out, as it does, sooner or later. 

Therefore, a regulation that regulates less, but is more active and trigger-happy, and treats a bank failure as something normal, as it should be, could be a much more effective regulation. The avoidance of a crisis, by any means, might strangely lead us to the one and only bank, therefore setting us up for the mother of all moral hazards—just to proceed later to the mother of all bank crises.”

Also, knowing that ‘the larger they are, the harder they fall,” if I were regulator, I would be thinking about a progressive tax on size”

But Wolf begins with “Banks are the Achilles heel of the mar­ket eco­nomy. The com­bin­a­tion of risky long-term assets with liquid liab­il­it­ies redeem­able at par is a stand­ing invit­a­tion to illi­quid­ity and insolv­ency.” On that I would like to point out that in the case of SVB, those “risky long-term assets” were US Treasury bonds, assigned a 0% risk weight by the regulators. Current risk weighted bank capital/equity requirements are the real Achilles heel of the mar­ket eco­nomy. Had these not existed, and there instead had been one single capital requirement against all assets e.g., 10%, there’s no chance SVB (or other banks) would have so much ignored the interest rate risk, the duration risk, present.

Just think of what must be a modern bank risk manager’s risk dilemma: “What if my risk model shows the risks of the bank’s assets have increased a lot and therefore the bank’s capital/equity requirements will have to increase a lot too? What will the Board say?”

Wolf writes: “As Charles Good­hart of the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics has noted, man­agers who fail to man­age suc­cess­fully must share — and know they will share — in the losses”. I ask, should that not apply to regulators too? Should those who with so much hubris have/are betting our bank systems on that they know so much about risks, not at least be paraded down some major avenues wearing cones of shame?

Finally, Wolf hopes that “The Brit­ish author­it­ies appear to have been much more aware of the risks cre­ated by losses on the mar­ket value of port­fo­lios caused by higher interest rates than those in the US.” Why does he not investigate if its so? Is he scared he, like most, will have been duped/lulled into a false sense of security believing that risk weighted assets (RWA) is a sufficiently good reflection of bank risks?

More on this issue.

For our grandchildren sake we must recover the “democratic capitalism” we inherited and lost too much of.

“We have inherited democratic capitalism from the struggles of our predecessors. We must reform and protect it for our descendants.” Martin Wolf, “In defence of democratic capitalism” FT January 21, 2023

Yes, indeed, but Sir, sadly, we’ve already lost too much of it. When I see bank capital requirements with decreed risk weights of 0% government and 100% citizens, I see Hitler/Stalin/Mao/Mussolini decreed weights… I see populism… I see the empowerment of an authoritarian bureaucracy autocracy… I see the dangerous and weakening distortion of the allocation of bank credit.

And that’s why, even to the point of obsession (as Wolf once mentioned) I’ve been fighting the risk weighted bank capital (equity / shareholders’-skin-in-the-game) requirements, first introduced 1988, as Basel I. These allow banks to leverage more their shareholders’-skin-in-the-game, and thereby earn higher risk adjusted returns on equity when financing what’s perceived (or decreed) as safe, than when financing what’s perceived as risky.

That de facto decreed the more creditworthy as more worthy of credit and the less creditworthy as less worthy of credit.

Wolf opines “It is possible for example to limit macroeconomic instability by reducing reliance on debt-fuelled demand and making the financial system more robust”. Yes, but for that Wolf must try to understand that what’s “safe” e.g., government debts and residential mortgages are more like demand-pushing-carbs while, what’s “risky” e.g., loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs, could be classified as supply-producing-proteins.

These regulations were sold as making our bank systems safer. What nonsense. The large exposures that have caused all major bank crises have always been built up with assets perceived (or now decreed) as safe, and never ever with assets perceived as risky.

The real reason for it all was confessed by Paul Volcker in his 1988 autobiography “Keeping at it”: “Assets for which bank capital requirements were nonexistent, were what had the most political support; sovereign credits and home mortgages… A ‘leverage ratio’ discouraged holdings of low-return government securities.”

Were those regulations agreed upon in a democratic way? Absolutely not. For a starter these should not be able to clear the American Founding Fathers’ US Constitution. 

Wolf mentions his family’s history: “In May 1940, as the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, my mother escaped from the country in a trawler hijacked by her father, a self-made fish merchant. Her father, one of nine, asked all his wider family to join them on the journey to England. None did: they were all slaughtered in the Holocaust.”

The morning after, everything’s clear but, the night before, who was the real risk-taker, Martin Wolf’s grandfather or the other eight who stayed behind?

In the same way the morning after a bank crisis, what’s dangerous becomes crystal clear. But what’s usually forgotten by Monday morning quarterbacks, is that the large exposures that caused the crisis were built up with assets perceived (or now decreed) as very safe. 

PS. My first ever Op-Ed 25 years ago was on this subject

Creditworthiness should be grounded on what’s worthy of credit.

Sir, Martin Wolf writes “The vicious circle in which low creditworthiness begets unaffordable spreads, which beget debt crises and even lower creditworthiness.” “The threat of a lost decade in development”, Jan 11, 2023

NO! That vicious circle begins with too high decreed government creditworthiness. 

November 2004, the Financial Times published a letter in which I asked “How many Basel propositions will it take before they start realizing the damage they are doing by favoring so much bank lending to the public sector?”

Sincerely, anyone lending money to a developing country that has adopted Basel Committees’ bank regulations, based on that its bureaucrats know better what to do with that credit they’re not personally responsible for than e.g., its small businesses and entrepreneurs, deserves losing money.

When participating in the Sustainable Debt Levels (SDL) debate my opinion was always: “There cannot be a road more conducive to debt turning unsustainable, than to award credits just because they are sustainable.”

And what is development much about? The willingness to take risks. Where does Mr. Wolf thinks the western world would be with the current risk weighted bank capital requirements? In Nirvana or still among the emerging developing nations?

Friedrich List wrote that free trade was the means through which an already industrialized country “kicks away the ladder by which it has climbed up, in order to deprive others of the means of climbing up after it.” If we were to paraphrase List, if the high-income countries want to help, don’t kick away that ladder of risk taking that made them high-income.

1987, in reference to that credit risk aversion coming out of the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, I ended my first Op-Ed ever with:

“If we insist on maintaining a firm defeatist attitude which definitely does not represent a vision of growth for the future, we will most likely end up with the most reserved and solid banking sector in the world, adequately dressed in very conservative business suits, presiding over the funeral of the economy. I would much prefer their putting on some blue jeans and trying to get the economy moving.”

Sir, I feel that paragraph being just as valid as then… and much worse, not only to developing nations.

PS. At the High-level Dialogue on Financing for Developing at the United Nations, New York, October 2007, this is the document I presented:

My first Op-Ed: http://subprimeregulations.blogspot.com/1997/06/puritanism-in-banking.html

My letter in FT: https://teawithft.blogspot.com/2004/11/basel-is-just-mutual-admiration-club.html

Britannia, to have a chance to become its former self, needs to free its financial systems from its mis-regulators.

Sir, Martin Wolf asks: “Britannia is not ‘unchained’. It is instead sailing in perilous waters. Can the new captain and first mate even see the rocks that lie ahead?” “The economic consequences of Truss” FT September 21.

Wolf writes: “Thatcher and those who followed her allowed the search for safety in corporate pensions to shift portfolios away from the supply of risk capital to business to ownership of government bonds. This in effect turned the plans into state-backed pay-as-you-go schemes.”. 

Sir, more than three decades late Martin Wolf seems to notice that huge rock of Basel I that, for its risk weighted bank capital requirements, decreed weights of 0% government, 30% residential mortgages and 100% citizens. Better late than never… but really?

These bank capital requirements are based on that what’s perceived as risky, e.g., loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs are more dangerous to bank systems than what’s perceived as safe, e.g., government debt and residential mortgages.

That de facto translates into it being much more important for banks to hold government debt and residential mortgages than loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs. Something which, with Solvency II, applies to its insurance companies too. Really, is that how Britannia got to be strong?

Sir, the Western world’s banks were taken from the hands of savvy loan officers who knew their first duty was to know their clients and understand what their loans were going to be used for and placed into the hands bank own capital minimizing/leverage maximizing dangerously creative financial engineers.

“UK has a deregulated economy… in which the successful are well rewarded, but those who do less well are penalised. Such Thatcherite aims then are now a reality” No! Bank regulators reward those ex-antes perceived or decreed as safe over those perceived as risky. That has zero to do with their ex-post success. Has the UK's public debt been well employed?

Let’s hope someone like Liz Truss dares to set aside whatever mandates she might have, no matter how worthy these might be, in order to tackle a real financial regulatory reform.

Sir, what would Edmund Burke with his intergenerational social contract have opined about prioritizing the refinancing of the “safer” present over the financing of the riskier future?   

 

Why does the world ignore regulations that totally disrupt the allocation of bank credit?

Sir, I refer to Martin Wolf’s “Shocks from war in Ukraine are many-sided. - The conflict is a multiplier of disruption in an already disrupted world” FT April 27.

The concentration of human fallible regulatory power in the Basel Committee has, since 1988, resulted in bank capital requirements mostly based on that what’s perceived as risky e.g., loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs, is more dangerous to our bank systems than what’s perceived or decreed as safe e.g., government debt and residential mortgages; and not on misperceived risks or unexpected events, like a pandemic or a war. 

What can go wrong? I tell you Sir.

When times are good and perceived risks low, these pro-cyclical capital requirements allow banks to hold little capital, pay big dividends & bonuses, do stock buybacks; and so, when times get rough, banks stand there naked, just when we need them the most.

And of course, meanwhile, these capital requirements, by much favoring the refinancing of the safer present over the financing of the riskier future, have much disrupted the allocation of credit

Why has the world for decades ignored this amazing regulatory mistake?

Sir, perhaps you could ask Martin Wolf to explain that to us.

PS. Two tweets today on bank regulators’ credit risk weighted bank capital requirements.

What kind of banks do we want?

Banks who allocate credit based on risk adjusted interest rates?

Or banks who allocate credit based on risk adjusted returns on the equity that besserwisser regulators have decreed should be held against that specific asset?

https://subprimeregulations.blogspot.com/2021/01/and-academia-kept-silence.html

Bank events' matrix

What’s perceived risky turns out safe

What’s perceived risky turns out risky

What’s perceived safe turns out safe

What’s perceived safe turns out risky

Which quadrangle is really dangerous?

Covered by current capital requirements?

NO!

https://youtu.be/TUdKhm6_a8Y

For inflation, where the money supply goes, matters a lot too

Sir, I refer to Martin Wolf’s “The monetarist dog is having its day”, FT February 23.

Yes, the money supply impacts inflation, no doubts but, when it comes to how much, that also depends on where that money supply goes.

If central banks inject liquidity through a system where, because of risk weighted capital requirements, banks can leverage more, meaning easier obtain higher risk adjusted returns on equity with Treasuries and residential mortgages, than with loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs, does that not favor demand over supply?

It does, and you should not have to be a Milton Friedman to understand that sooner or later that can only help inflate any inflation.

Wolf holds that “Central banks must be humble and prudent” Yes, and that goes for bank regulators too.

“Humble” in accepting there are huge limits to their knowing what the real risks in an uncertain world are; and “prudent” as in knowing bank capital requirements are mainly needed as a buffer against the certainty of misperceived credit risks and unexpected events, and not like now, mostly based on the certainty of perceived credit risks.

@PerKurowski

Compared to more than three decades ago, what is the current leverage ratio of our banks?

Sir, Martin Wolf, in FT on July 12, 2012, in “Seven ways to clean up our banking ‘cesspit’” opined: “Banks need far more equity: In setting these equity requirements, it is essential to recognize that so-called “risk-weighted” assets can and will be gamed by both banks and regulators. As Per Kurowski, a former executive director of the World Bank, reminds me regularly, crises occur when what was thought to be low risk turns out to be very high risk. For this reason, unweighted leverage matters. It needs to be far lower.”Soon a decade since, are bank capital requirements much higher and really sufficient?

No! Though bank capital requirements are mostly needed as a buffer against the certainty of misperceived credit risks & unexpected events, in this uncertain world, these are by far, still mostly based on the certainty of the perceived credit risks.

Consequently, when times are rosy, regulators allow banks: to lend dangerously much to what’s perceived as very safe; to hold much less capital; to do more stock buybacks and to pay more dividends & bonuses. Therefore, banks will stand there naked, when most needed. 

The leverage ratio is also important because it includes as assets, loans to governments at face value, and thereby makes it harder for excessive public bank borrowers to hide behind Basel I’s risk weights of 0% government, 100% citizens. No matter how safe the government might be, those weights de facto imply bureaucrats know better what to do with credit they’re not personally responsible for than e.g., small businesses and entrepreneurs.

November 19, 2004, in a letter you published I wrote: “Our bank supervisors in Basel are unwittingly controlling the capital flows in the world. How many Basel propositions will it take before they start realizing the damage they are doing by favoring so much bank lending to the public sector?” That this factor, in the face of huge government indebtedness, is not even discussed, as I see it can only be explained by too much inbred statism.

Before the Basel Committee Accord became operative in 1988, Basel I, banks were generally required to hold about 10 percent of capital against all assets, meaning a leverage ratio of 10.

Where do banks find themselves now? I know well it’s hard, and extremely time consuming, to make tails and heads out of current bank statements, but I’m absolutely sure most financial media, if they only dared and wanted, have the capacity to extract that information.

Should not such basic/vital data be readily available and perhaps even appear on front pages? It’s not! Why? Has media been silenced by capital minimizing/leverage maximizing dangerously creative financial engineers?

Sir, I’m not picking especially on financial journalists, the silence of the Academia, especially the tenured one, is so much worse.

@PerKurowski

Martin Wolf, again, any good economic plan needs, sine qua non, to get rid of bank credit distorting regulations.

Sir, I refer to Martin Wolf’s “Without an economic plan, patriotism is Johnson’s last refuge” FT, October 18, 2021

In Martin Wolf’s Economist Forum of October 2009, FT published an opinion I titled “Please free us from imprudent risk-aversion and give us some prudent risk-taking” (The link is gone, I wonder why)

In that article, commenting partly on the 2008 crisis, I held that getting rid of the risk weighted bank capital requirements, that which distorts the allocation of credit to the real economy, was an absolute must. 

Now, 11 years later, I must still insist in that, without doing so, there’s no economic plan that can deliver sustainable results.

The main ingredient of any safe pension system is a healthy and sturdy economy.

Sir, I refer to Martin Wolf’s “It is folly to make pensions safe by making them unaffordable” FT, June 28.

Wolf writes: “We also need true risk-sharing within and across generations, which is absent from today’s defined-contribution schemes”

But current risk weighted bank capital requirements, with lower risk weights for financing the “safer” present, e.g., loans to governments and residential mortgages, than when financing the riskier future, e.g., small businesses and entrepreneurs, is a clear example of how that intergenerational holy bond Edmund Burke wrote about has been violated.

John Kay and Mervyn King.“Radical uncertainty”? Please, give us a more stupid "radical certainty", than credit risk weighted bank capital requirements.

And way back, when observing how many Social Security System Reforms were based on the underlying assumption that they will be growing 5 to 7 percent in real terms, I also warned, time and time again, that it was not possible for the value of investment funds to grow, forever, at a higher rate than the underlying economy, unless they are just inflating it with air, or unless they are taking a chunk of the growth from someone else. In this respect the 'chickens are only coming home to roost'.

PS. Historically, through all economic cycles, there is nothing that has proven so valuable in terms of personal social security as having many well-educated loving children to take care of you, and that, in real terms, you can't beat with any social security reform.

A letter to Martin Wolf in 2015. An essential component of an Edmund Burke intergenerational holy bond, must be the willingness to take risks.

Another letter on this subject sent to Martin Wolf in in 2017

And another letter on the Covid response intergenerational conflict of monstrous proportions, also published by the Washington Post in 2020

How much lower fertility, less children, is caused by “habitual well-being”?

@PerKurowski

Spurn bank regulators' false promises.

Sir, Martin Wolf makes a good case for “We should not throw liberal trade away for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way”, “Spurn the false promise of protectionism” FT June 16.

Yet, when regulators, decades ago, decided to throw liberal access to bank credit, by imposing credit risk weighted bank capital requirements, something which completely distorted the access to bank credit, Wolf and 99.99 percent of those who should have spoken up, kept mum.

Though I’ve no idea whether they read it, in a 2019 letter I wrote to the Executive Directors and Staff of the International Monetary Fund, I argued that these risk weights are to access to credit, precisely what tariffs are to trade, adding “only more pernicious” 

Wolf writes that “the US economy has suffered from high and rising inequality and a poor labour force performance” and includes among other explanations the “rent-extracting behaviour throughout the economy”

But anyone who reads “Keeping at it” 2018 in which Paul Volcker’s 2018 valiantly confessed: “The assets assigned the lowest risk, for which bank capital requirements were therefore low or nonexistent, were those that had the most political support: sovereign credits and home mortgages”, should be able to understand that rent-extraction also occurs by means of cheaper and more abundant access to credit.

And boy did regulators throw away unencumbered access to credit in “the wrong way”

Here follows four examples: 

To establish their risk weights, they used the perceived credit risks, what’s seen “under the street light” while, of course, they should have used the risks for banks conditioned on how credit risks were perceived. 

By allowing banks, when the outlook was rosy, to hold little capital, meaning paying high dividends, lots of share buy backs, and huge bonuses, they placed business cycles on steroids.

Very little of their capital requirements cover misperceived credit risks or unexpected events. Therefore, just as in 2008 with the collapse of AAA rated mortgage back securities, and now with a pandemic, banks were doomed to stand there with their pants down.

With risk weights of 0% the sovereign and 100% the citizens, which de facto imply bureaucrats know better what to do with credit they’re not personally responsible for than e.g., entrepreneurs, they smuggled communism/statism/fascism into our banking system.

“We will make your bank systems safe with our credit risk weighted bank capital requirements” Sir, what amount of wishful thinking must have existed for the world, its Academia included, to so naively have fallen for the hubristic promises of some technocrats.

@PerKurowski

Central banks and regulators cancelled the creative part of destruction.

I refer to Martin Wolf’s comments on Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin and Simon Bunel’s “The Power of Creative Destruction”, “The innovation game” FT June 11, 2021 

John Kenneth Galbraith in “Money: Whence it came where it went” of 1975 wrote: “For the new parts of the country [USA’s West]…there was the right to create banks at will and therewith the notes and deposits that resulted from their loans…[if] the bank failed…someone was left holding the worthless notes… but some borrowers from this bank were now in business...[jobs created]” That’s creative destruction in action.

The current risk weighted bank capital requirements allow banks to earn much higher risk adjusted returns on equity when financing what’s perceived (or decreed) as safe e.g., loans to the government and residential mortgages, than when lending to the “risky” small businesses and entrepreneurs. That’s creative destruction inaction. 

Would the development Galbraith describes have been possible with these regulations? No! Such risk-averse regulations do not help promote innovations.

Sir, in august 2006, in reference to an FT editorial mentioning the possibilities and impact of a “global housing slowdown”, you published a letter I wrote in which I referred to “The long-term benefits of a hard landing.” When the global financial crisis erupted in 2008, there was too much interest in trying to avoid collecting any of these benefits, and the crisis-can was kicked forward... and then much upward with QEs. 

The result? Way too little creative destruction and way too many surviving zombies… and here we are, on a much higher mountain of public and private debt. That will cause pure destruction.

“Risk weighted bank capital requirements”. Sir, if that’s not sophisticated technocratic demagoguery, what is?

Bank regulators never considered the unexpected, like a pandemic

Sir, Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau and Erna Solberg opine: “The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us that the costs of prevention and early response are small compared with the consequences of under-investment.” “G7 should pay lion’s share of costs to help end the pandemic” FT June 10.

That’s correct but it should not have taken a pandemic to understand that banks need also to have sufficient capital so as to be able to respond to unexpected events. Unfortunately, instead of basing their bank capital requirements on such possibilities, or on that of misperceived credit risks e.g., 2008’s AAA rated mortgage-backed securities, bank regulators, the Basel Committee, doubled down on perceived credit risks, those which were already being cleared for by banks. 

The result? Though so many don’t want the innocent child to be heard, the banks now stand there naked.

Sir, again, if what’s perceived as safe is safe, and what’s perceived as risky is risky, would banks need capital. Not much. 

Bank regulations need a complete overhaul, meaning going back to the humbling reality of risks being hard to measure; instead of digging us down even deeper in the hole with Basel IV, Basel V and so on.

PS. July 12, 2012 Martin Wolf wrote: “Per Kurowski, a former executive director of the World Bank, reminds me regularly, crises occur when what was thought to be low risk turns out to be very high risk.” Martin Wolf clearly heard me, but he did not listen.

@PerKurowski

Has Thatcherism run its course, or has Thatcherism been run off its course?

Sir, Martin Wolf asks “once we accept that Thatcherism has run its course, what follows?” “Sunak takes an axe to Thatcher’s low-tax ideology” FT, March 8.

Sir, to keep it brief, let me just ask three questions:

What would Margaret Thatcher have said about risk weighted bank capital requirements that de facto imply Britain’s bureaucrats/politicians know better what to do with credit for which repayment they’re not personally responsible for, than e.g. Britain’s small businesses and entrepreneurs?

What would Margaret Thatcher have said about risk weighted bank capital requirements that de facto imply the financing of residential mortgages is more important to Britain’s economy than the financing of its small businesses and entrepreneurs?

What would Margaret Thatcher have said about risk weighted bank capital requirements that de facto imply that what’s correctly perceived as risky, is more dangerous to Britain’s bank systems than what’s perceived as safe?

Sir, can you dare your Mr. Wolf to answer those questions?

PS. My 2019 letter to the Financial Stability Board

@PerKurowski

Before aiming at any target, central banks must cure their shortsightedness

Sir, I refer to Martin Wolf’s “What central banks ought to target” FT, March 3.

With risk weighted bank capital requirements, the regulators are targeting what’s perceived as risky, thereby de facto fostering the creation of the excessive exposures to what’s perceived as safe, but that could end up being risky, which is precisely what all major bank crises are made off. In other words, they are putting future Minsky moments on steroids.

And if to the distortions in the allocation of credit to the economy that produces, you add the QEs, then you end up with such a mish-mash of monetary policy that no one, not even Mr. Wolf, should be able to make heads and tails out of it.

Wolf writes, “Central banking is art, not science… it must be coupled to deep awareness of uncertainty”. Sir, I ask, can you think of anything that evidences such lack of awareness of uncertainty than the risk weighted bank capital requirements?

So, before discussing what else to target, it is essential that central banks and regulators get their shortsightedness corrected.

Of course, “the central bank [should] set a rate that is consistent with a macroeconomic equilibrium” but, what would those rates be if banks needed to hold as much money when lending to the sovereign (the King) than when lending to citizens?

And when Wolf reports that “the New Zealand government has told its central bank to target house prices”, that makes me ask: Is anyone aware of the implications of having a central banks placed in the middle of that real, though not named, class war between those who have houses as investment assets and those who just want affordable homes?

Finally, as so many do, Wolf also signs up on that: “If people want less wealth inequality, they should argue for wealth and inheritance taxes”. But just as most do, he does so without explaining what assets, and to whom, the wealthy should sell, in order to reacquire that cash/purchase power needed to pay the tax that they handed over to the economy when they bought these. Not doing so, leaves one quite often a sort of populist aftertaste.

PS. Inflation? Just the same old confusion

@PerKurowski

Bank capital requirements or bank leverage allowances?

Martin Wolf referring to Windows of Opportunity by David Sainsbury writes that growth is “exploiting new opportunities that generate enduring advantages in high-productivity sectors and so high wages… developing something fundamentally new is often costly and risky” “Why once successful countries get left behind” February 22.

Indeed, but as Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter "Novo Millennio Ineunte" reminded us of the words of Jesus when one day, he invited the Apostles to "put out into the deep" for a catch: "Duc in altum" [and] "When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish".

Sir, “risk weighted bank capital requirements” reads like a very sophisticated tool that, when it comes to keeping our bank systems safe, is expected to assure great prudence. For instance, a 20% risk weight assigned to AAA rated asset and 100% to loans to unrated entrepreneurs and using Basel Committee’s basic 8% capital requirement, translates into 1.6% in capital for AAA rated assets and 8% for loans to unrated entrepreneurs. At first sight, that seems quite reasonable, because of course AAA rated could be five times riskier than what’s not rated.

But there is another side of that coin, that of a very costly risk-taking avoidance. It becomes much clearer if we label the former as “risk weighted bank leverage allowances”. 

Doing so we observe banks are allowed to leverage 62.5 times to one with assets rated AAA, but only 12.5 times with loans to unrated entrepreneurs. The question then is: if banks are allowed to leverage 50 times more their capital with AAA rated assets, why would any bank lend to unrated entrepreneurs, that is unless these pay much more in interest rates would in order to make up for that regulatory discrimination?

Sir, John A. Shedd wrote “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are for” and I am sure FT agrees that applies to banks too. Unfortunately, current regulations have banks dangerously overpopulating “safe” harbors, e.g. residential mortgages, while leaving those deep waters that need to be explored in order for once successful countries not ending up left behind.

PS. Much as I already wrote 2009 in Martin Wolf's Economic Forum.