How long will the young stand for the nonsense of the ageing baby-boomers?

Sir, Michael Stothard, in “Elderly set to ride to rescue of fixed income” July 26, writes “a ray of sunshine – the bond market pessimists are failing to factor in: the rapidly ageing population across the western world.” Those over 65 years old are 16 percent of population today and expected to be 25 percent in 2042.

The argument is that the elderly will abandon equities and turn to safe bonds. The equities for which there will still be some demand are safer dividend-paying stocks and those related to services to the elderly, including funeral operators.

“A ray of sunshine”? If we add to this that the current ageing baby-boomer bank regulators want banks only to make safe loans and not take risk on small businesses and entrepreneurs… who is then going to finance the new generation of jobs our young so urgently needs?… who is then going to provide the growth that will keep those safe bonds safe.

In the back of my mind, by the day looms louder the question of… how long will the young stand for this type of nonsense?

Are Basel bank regulators sadists?

Sir, Michael Stothard reports that “Corporate bonds get ready for Basel boost” November 7, as banking regulators are now thinking of also allowing single-A rated bonds to be held for banks in compliance of the new liquidity rules. And this though, “The corporate bond market hardly needed another lift. Central bank bond buying has already stoked strong demand for global credits, allowing companies to borrow at all-time low rates”.

What is wrong with the bank regulators? I can’t believe they can be so dumb. Are they sadist? Do they not understand that for every little new preference they dole out to some bank investment in what they perceive as not risky, or less risky, “The Infallible”, they are making it so much harder for those officially perceived as "risky" to access bank credit.

“The Risky” includes of course all those unrated small businesses and entrepreneurs out there, and which bank credit needs we are very much interested the banks serve well, as these borrowers could be those best suited to help us to find the new generation of jobs for our young.

And besides, all regulators achieve with their discrimination, is to artificially decrease the return for other than bank investors when investing in reasonable safe securities. What do the regulators want? That widows and orphans perform the economic resource allocation function of banks?

And, FT, how long are you going to remain in conspiratorial silence about this regulatory lunacy?