Please, if we are to stand a chance, we must not allow the fight for less environmental damages to be politicized

Sir, with respect of the threat of climate change, or, ‘the just plain huge environmental damages of which we do not know what consequences these will have though we might presume these will not be overly positive’, I do not agree with Clive Cookson’s conclusion that “a second Obama administration seems certain to do more [reducing carbon dioxide emissions] than a President Mitt Romney”… that is unless he considers taking a baby aspirin is a solid way to fight a tumor, “It shouldn’t have taken Sandy for US to debate science”, November 3. 

In fact given that the environmental challenge needs the cooperation of everyone if we are going to stand a chance, including by the way that of the poorest of the poor, the worst thing we can do is to politicize it, or allow the solutions to become the exclusive domain of some self defined especially conscientious high income earning groups. 

That we need accurate forecasts no one doubts; that governments are the best fitted to provide these services is probably true, but, as citizens it behooves us to always and continuously explore alternatives, like what if all money publicly spent was used for premiums to the 100 most accurate and important weather prognosis provided to the public each year… with a charge to all service providers for the 1o most important weather prognosis mistakes. 

When Cookson writes that “Mismanagement and under-investment threaten the US weather satellite programme”, I am quite sure that neither he nor I, have the faintest idea of how much of the threat corresponds to each of the two factors he lists. 

On a more personal note, for many years now, I have expressed surprise over the fact that those who seem most concerned about the environment, and thereby as I see it should be the most concerned with how scarce resources are used to meet the challenge, seem the most willing to throw resources at it with no contemplation at all given to how do that more efficiently.

Martin Wolf, but what about the cumulative disadvantage for those officially perceived as “risky”?

Sir, Martin Wolf, in “Romney would be a backward step”, October 31, writes: “[A] challenge is inequality… to the extent that a child’s opportunity depends on the resources of its parents, the result will be more cumulative disadvantage”. 

Though I fail to see what that has to do specifically with Romney, Wolf is absolutely correct, but, then why on earth does he refuse to protest the cumulative disadvantage those perceived as “The Risky” are equally submitted to when trying to access bank credit? 

Not only do “The Risky” have to pay higher interests rates, get smaller loans and have to accept harsher contract terms, but on top of it all, in a cumulative way, the regulators also require the banks to hold more capital when lending to them than when lending to The infallible”. 

If a child’s education was placed under the supervision of a Basel Committee, those regulators, if applying consistently their current paradigms, would perhaps require the children of the poor to contract a special insurance to cover the risks of them not completing the education, because clearly their parents do not have the same resources as the children of the rich. Could Martin Wolf possibly agree with something like that? 

Or is it that Martin Wolf just cannot understand that when you impose a cumulative disadvantage on “The Risky” you are de-facto awarding a dangerous cumulative advantage to "The Infallible”?

To pay taxes directly to your government, in your own name, no matter how small, should be a human right.

Sir I completely agree with Mr Serge Desprat´s letter of September 29 titled “Poorest may benefit from paying tax”, written in response to John Authers´ “Romney´s gaffe highlights difficulty of avoiding cliff” September 29. 

It is an absolute shame how much in taxes are paid by the poorest, for instance through sales taxes or, in my country Venezuela, by having their rightful share of oil revenues retained by the petro-dictator in turn, without any of those taxes being credited to their names, so as to allow them the feeling they have contributed with their nation, and that they have indeed a right to also hold their government accountable for what it did, with their own money.

“My tax paradise: (Nothing as powerful against tax havens as tax heavens)”

Might Martin Wolf have too many “not risky” friends and too few “risky”?

Sir I completely share Martin Wolf’s concerns about “1930s…economic catastrophe with long lasting political results” “Bernanke makes an historic choice” September 19. And to that effect let me just reference the letter I wrote titled “The monsters that thrive on hardship haunt my dreams”, and that you so kindly published on the last day of 2009. 

But it is precisely because of it that I do not agree with any injections of any sort of stimulus, before we have eliminated the regulatory taxes on access to bank credit for those perceived as “risky”, and which result from the regulatory subsidies given to the access to bank credit to those perceived as “not risky”. That discrimination waters down any long lasting effect of QEs and fiscal stimulus, and is therefore basically setting us up for a monstrous inflation. 

I just cannot understand how Martin Wolf can keep silent, year after year, about the distortions produced by petit bank regulators, when setting their risk-adverse risk-weights which determine the capital requirements for banks. Or, is it that Wolf has too many friends among the “not-risky” and too few among the “risky”? If so, perhaps he should divulge his conflict of interest. 

Frankly, who authorized bank regulators to do to our banks what they did?

Ending bank regulatory stupidity in the US (and Europe), is a vital non-partisan issue

Sir, I refer to Conrad Black´s, “The Republicans can end 15 years of US stupidity” August 30. I would sure like to ask Mr. Black the following question: 

Suppose there was the potential of issuing trillions of dollars in “worthless real estate-backed paper certified as investment grade by the palsied lions of Wall Street”. 

What would the possibility be of that issue finding buyers if banks needed to hold 8 percent in capital against these, meaning being able to leverage their equity 12.5 to 1, instead of the 1.6 percent that was authorized by the bank regulators in Basel II, and which allowed banks to leverage 62.5 to 1? 

My answer to it would of course be: “That issue would have been almost totally unsubscribed!” That it was a tragic success, was only the result of sheer regulatory stupidity. 

If there is one thing that WMR and Mr. Ryan, or President Obama for that matter, or republicans and democrats alike, need urgently understand, is that capital requirements for banks based on perceived risk, does not only produce dangerous distortions in the markets, but is also something completely incompatible with a “Home of the Brave” (and with a Western world built with risk-taking).