Elizabeth Warren, as a member of United States Senate Committee on Banking, might not perform entirely her own duties

Sir, Barney Jopson reports that Senator Elizabeth Warren is requesting the replacement of Mary Jo White as Chair of the Security and Exchange Commission “Warren wants SEC head fired for ‘undermining’ administration” October 15.

I have no opinion on how Mary Jo White has been performing her duties at the SEC but, the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, of which Ms Warren is a standing member, is lacking carrying out in its own responsibilities.

I hold that since to this date I have not seen any effort on part of that committee to ascertain if, and if so how much, the risk weighted capital requirements distort the allocation of bank credit.

This is not a minor issue. For a starter it could ask bank regulators for a full explanation of the risk weights of 0% when financing the sovereign (the King), 20% the AAArisktocracy, 35% housing and 100% “We the People” like SMEs and entrepreneurs, those with the best chances of generating the future jobs our grandchildren need. That regulatory credit risk aversion, layered on top of whatever risk aversion the bankers’ themselves can harbor, sounds as anathema as can be to the whole notion of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Besides, the discrimination in access to bank credit that those risk weights produce, violates directly the spirit of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B). In that respect the committee should also ask the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB, what it is doing about this.

With regulations, to favor banks lending to the “safer” past and present, over lending to the “riskier” future, is a clear violation of that holy social inter-generational bond that Edmund Burke spoke about.

To top it up, those risk weighted capital requirements do not serve one iota for making the banking system safer. All major bank crises result either from unexpected events or from excessive exposures to something erroneously perceived as safe, never ever because of excessive exposures to something ex ante perceived as risky.

PS. Elizabeth Warren, in as much as she classifies herself as a progressive, could also be interested in how these regulations decree inequality.

@PerKurowski ©

Let us then hope Mary Jo White really knows how to discriminate between what is right and what is wrong.

Sir, Kara Scannell and Shannon Bond quote David Keller saying about Mary Jo White, recently nominated by Obama to the Securities and Exchange Commission that “She is driven by her sense of what’s right”, "White nominated to lead Wall St watchdog” January 25.

I just hope then that Mary Jo White understands that regulatory discrimination in favor of “The Infallible” those already favored by markets and banks, and against “The Risky” those already discriminated against by markets and banks is, besides stupid, utterly wrong, I would even say truly odious.

I say this because on April 28, 2004, the SEC had no idea about what it was doing.