Sir FT, Your “Do whatever you can, as long as you do not allow banks to take risks” is hard to understand and forgive.

Sir, I refer to your “Life below zero must not become the new normal: Negative rates are a cry for even more aggressive action, not less” February 7.

You write: “Punishing savers for hoarding cash encourages them to put their money to work” but “negative rates are a sign that authorities are failing in any attempt to stimulate the economy.”

And then you conclude in that “there are better ways. Central banks should be given more expansionary targets, such as ambitious goals for inflation or nominal growth. Monetary and fiscal authorities can combine, either by financing deficits with money or through straightforward unsterilized transfers of cash to the public.”

Now the absolute best way an ordinary saver can put his money to work is by having the banks allocate credit efficiently to the real and “risky” economy. Banks are though currently impeded to do so, because of the credit-risk-weighted equity requirements that, in these times of scarce bank equity, force them to keep to the officially deemed “safe” economy.

Sir your reluctance to advance that line of explanation is mindboggling. My blog www.TeawithFT.blogspot.com exists as a historic record of your behavior, a major financial newspaper, in times of crisis, and not of mine. I’m too small fry for that.

Sir FT, I do not understand how you cannot find current bank regulations more than a bit loony.

We citizens authorize governments to support banks among others with some backstop mechanisms, and not to mention the bailouts.

And then come the regulators and allow banks to leverage that support especially when banks invest in those safe assets in which we, risk adverse small investors, want to invest in, with are own not-leveraged funds.

And in this way the regulators make the banks compete directly with us for what little supposedly really safe is available; and also make them stay away from what should be the banks’ prime business, namely lending to the risky, like small businesses and entrepreneurs, as they are the experts in that... not we.

Sir FT, I do not understand how you cannot find that more than a bit loony.