I know it is so politically incorrect but… where would Britain have been without its fair share of scoundrels?

Sir, Lindsay Fortado writes that Kweku Adoboli, the 35 year old UBS rogue trader, who lived in the UK since he was four, might now be deported to Ghana, “Deportation order UBS rogue trader Adoboli to fight to remain in the UK” October 12.

What is this, has not the UK had its own share of valuable scoundrels? Is being a scoundrel now suddenly a reason to deport someone in Britain? I am not an expert on British history but I know that BBC’s 100 Greatest Britons, broadcasted in 2002, included Walter Raleigh who I, as a Venezuelan, remember being told was even though a poet, sort of a pirate. Who knows perhaps Kweku Adoboli has it in him to kick Sir Walter out of that list and perhaps some Venezuelan would appreciate that.

Sir the real and nothing but the truth truth, although sad, is that few nations would have come very far without enterprising scoundrels.

Sir, I realize it is so utterly politically incorrect but… where would Britain have been without its fair share of scoundrels? Or perhaps even without its more than fair share of scoundrels? 

PS: If I was to deport someone from Britain, because of economic damages caused, it would of course be all those who had anything to do with forcing banks to use perceived credit risks to calculate how much capital they needed, even though those perceived credit risks were already used to set interest rates and amounts of exposure. That made banks 200% sensitive to perceived credit risk, which makes it impossible for these to allocate bank credit efficiently. But deport to where? Perhaps to Basel. 

@PerKurowski ©  J

When risky things turn out risky, they turn out as expected. It is in what’s “safe” where the real unexpected dangers lurk

Sir Lucy Kellaway when referring to Sergio Ermotti, the chief executive of UBS, telling “all the bankers who work for him that henceforth it was OK for them to make mistakes” writes: “Mistakes are never OK. And they are particularly un-OK in banking” because… “The main point about risks is that they are risky — and risky things have a way of going wrong.” “Listen to brain surgeons, not bankers, for the truth on errors” September 27.

Not so. When risky things turn out risky, they are actually turning out right as expected… it is when safe things turn out risky, that things can really go wrong.

And Kellaway argues: “What Mr Ermotti should have made clear was that sometimes his employees must take risks, and sometimes things will go wrong. When that happens, no one must ever make light of their cock-ups. Instead they should carry the memory of all their mistakes as part of their own internal score sheet of how they have fared as a banker.”

Indeed, but the greatest cock-up in banking history, a cock up so big that it is being frantically ignored, was the one made by bank regulators. It happened when they allowed banks to hold much less capital against assets perceived as safe, meaning against those assets that precisely because they are perceived as safe, represent the biggest danger to the banking system.

Lucy Kellaway, I am sorry, I have no idea why we would need to listen to brain surgeons for the truth on errors… even a bank regulator who knew what he was doing, should know that.

@PerKurowski

Is Ermotti suggesting UBS tinkers with risk measuring, like Volkswagen tinkered with pollution emissions measuring?

Sir, I refer to your most important editorial in over a decade, “Banking cannot prosper within a culture of fear”, September 24.  A more correct title would be: “Our economies cannot prosper when bank regulators have been overtaken by a culture of senseless fear”.

You, who proudly proclaims a “Without fear”, seem to at long last have to come to grips with the fact that risk-taking is much needed in order to avoid even worse risks. Sadly, you should at the latest, have written that in June 2004 when Basel II was announced.

Then silly risk adverse regulators, who clearly had never read The Parable of the Talents, imposed a culture of fear of “The Risky” by excessively embracing “The Safe”. Its risk-weighted capital requirements, clearly instructed banks to avoid taking risk on The Risky, by giving them permission to leverage incredibly, much riskier, with what is perceived ex antes as safe.

And you write: “Sergio Ermotti, the chief executive of UBS, has been so bold as to urge his staff to embrace risk-taking again”. Great, and of course I agree full heartedly with him. That is our responsibility towards those coming after us. God make us daring!

Unfortunately, Ermotti can urge his staff to embrace-risk taking as much as he wants, that will still not happen, not as long as the credit-risk weighted capital requirements remain in place. That is of course unless Ermotti is now suggesting that UBS tinkers with risk measuring, along the way Volkswagen tinkered with emissions measuring.

PS. On a personal note I wish of course you would have had the decency to at least acknowledged that this, Basel’s dangerous regulatory risk aversion, has been the leitmotiv in the over thousand of letters I sent you, which you preferred to ignore. The letters though are still all out there on my http://teawithft.blogspot.com, for the world to see.

PS. When bankers grow old and begin to fade away... what would they regret the most, the risk they took or the ones they did not dare to take?

PS. Here I have a brief YouTube explanation, in red and blue, of our crazy bank regulations.

@PerKurowski

We need to see the hiding-behind-regulatory-risk-weighting index of the banks

Sir Patrick Jenkins and Daniel Schäfer at the end of their “Banks in cash calls to meet Basel III” state the caveat with respect of the numbers shown that “Regulators [will] either raise risk-weightings and/or give more emphasis to nominal balance sheets.” Indeed, but it can also be, like the current crisis has clearly evidenced, that the risk-weights could also simply turn out to be very wrong.

And that is why I consider the illustration that shows Basel III core tier one capital ratios of 12 large banks to be quite opaque. As a minimum, next to each Basel III ratio they should have given us each banks capital to nominal balance sheet ratio.

That way, by dividing the first ratio by the second (or the other way round) we can build an index which allows us to identify how each bank hides behind risk-weights, whether these are calculated by themselves or by the regulators.

Bank regulators need also to reinvigorate urgently their moral mojos.

Sir, I cannot but express amazement with the abundant and detailed coverage given to of UBS and The Libor Affair by the Financial Times, for instance on December 20, when compared to the so little information given out on what the Basel II bank regulations really was about, The Basel Affair.

For instance, just the simple publication of the tables of risk weights corresponding to “Claims on sovereigns, page 19 and “Claims on corporates”, page 23 and that appears in the June 2006 document that compiles Basel II, with an explanation of what that entailed in authorized leverages to banks when holding different assets, would have enlightened your readers of a problem a thousand-fold more significant than the absolutely illegal Libor incident.

In fact Jonathan Guthrie’s assertion that “Big banks must reinvigorate their moral mojos” should apply as much or even more to the regulators. Here we have public servants deciding, for no other reason than to satisfy their boudoir dreams of a world with no bank failures, that those perceived as risky must pay even higher interest rates to the banks than they would ordinarily have to pay, and those perceived as absolutely safe less, and that, besides being plain stupid, is also plain immoral.

And when Caroline Binham reports on how “Lowball [Libor] tenders aimed to paint a rosy pictures of health [of UBS]” this seems so innocent when compared to the so low capital ratios reported by the banks, because of the risk-weighting of assets, and which really confounded all, including all FT’s experts.

On Companies International, November 17

Whistling in the dark forest?

Sir Robert Anderson and Christopher Mason in reporting that “Newspapers face fresh pricing pressures” they quote a spokesman for Norske Skog (Norway’s forest), the worlds second largest newsprint producer saying “We see a momentum now for increased prices”. Surprising. Is that how one whistles in a dark forest?

82 percent of pirates?

Sir Kathrin Hille and Mure Dickie reporting on how “Chinese consumers flex their muscles in Microsoft piracy flight” they mention that according to Business Software Alliance China’s piracy rates are 82 per cent, and not the world’s worst. Can we really talk of piracy when 82 per cent of a country does it? Neverland? What do we call the other 18 per cent, law abiding Chinese? When might it be better for Microsoft to go underground and start to cater to the pirates? Has Microsoft analyzed what would happen to their worldwide income if they priced their Microsoft Office at $ 9.99 per year?

Whistling in the dark desert?

Sir Simeon Kerr and Robin Wigglesworth report on “UBS fund in $500 Mideast joint foray” November 17. Steve Jacobs of UBS tell them “clients had already expressed an interest in the Middle East, which is expected to outperform most other regions as the global slowdown deepens”. Surprising. Is that how one whistles in a dark desert?

Who gets the money?

Sir Jonathan Soble, (in Tokyo?) reports on an “astronomical fine” of $1.75bn levied on some glassmakers, because they “conspired to fix prices of windscreens and other automotive glass between 1998 and 2003.” Who gets the money?