What cultural insight could anthropologist Gillian Tett, or any neo-Cannibal Club colleague of hers give in order for me to better understand bank regulations that seem so loony?

Sir, Gillian Tett, commenting on Marc Flandreauan economic historian’s 2016 book “Anthropologists in the Stock Exchange”, writes about the “Cannibal Club, a so-called anthropological society that, its members hoped, would explore far-flung cultures in order to uncover what made humans tick” “It is primitive to ignore what links finance and social science” December 2.

When Tett refers to that “By the middle of the 19th century, much debt was turning sour due to defaults, corruption and fraud (some perpetrated by British swindlers who misled investors about opportunities on offer). Sovereign loans in places such as Venezuela kept delivering nasty shocks.” I would then have liked very much to be able to ask those anthropologists whether if all, or any, of those failed financial assets had been ex ante considered risky. 

Today I would also like to ask any neo-Cannibals why they think current bank regulators could want banks to hold more capital against what is perceived as risky? To me that is a mystery. Is it not when something perceived ex ante as very safe turns out ex post as very risky, that one would really like banks to have the most of it?

On Venezuela’s defaults, Tett suggests “thinking about this historical link between capital markets and culture, and between finance and social sciences” I would add the fact that Venezuela’s main export revenues, oil, currently 97% of these are centralized in its government. If that’s not enough to know that things will, sooner or later, go utterly wrong, I do not know what is.

@PerKurowski

Sadly Bolivar did not free Venezuela from its natural resource curse

Sir, Gideon Long writes about the immense significance Simon Bolívar has for all Venezuelans. “Bitter enemies invoke spirit of Bolívar as vote looms” July 27.

As a Venezuelan I can only agree with most of it but, unfortunately, in October of 1829, Bolivar ordered the continuance of what had been decreed in 1783 by Carlos III of Spain, namely that all precious metals and “juices of the earth” reserves belonged to the Republic.

With that Bolivar guaranteed the Venezuelan governments would not depend exclusively on the citizens and that, sooner or later, some would capture the government to steal it blind.

If we Venezuelans are to gain real independence all our net oil revenues have to be shared out entirely to the citizens.

Had that been achieved earlier, the current disaster would not have had a chance to happen.

It is a great tragedy that freeing Venezuela from the curse of centralized oil revenues is still not on the agenda of anyone the most important opposition leaders.

@PerKurowski

Any jury, given the facts on how Venezuela works, would in seconds, unanimously condemn Mr. Mauro Libi for corruption.

Sir, John Paul Rathbone writes: “As protests and violence engulf Caracas, the country is beset by shortages and endemic corruption. Amid the chaos, Mauro Libi has built a huge food business empire but his critics want to know how.” “Profits from empty shelves” FT, Big Read, Venezuela, July 14.

His critics want to know how? In a country in which a government centralizes 97% of all export revenues, and foreign currency is thereafter allotted not by free market operations but by mechanisms that require the approval of individual government bureaucrats, can there be any doubt that the fortune Libi derives from imports of food to Venezuela, as described by Rathbone, can be anything but the result of corruption?

FT, I am sure you would not dare try to justify any other possibility, and this even if the only consequence you could suffer from it was being laughed at?

Rathbone writes: “Mr Libi’s story, as he tells it, is of a resourceful businessman working against the odds… He even claims to be exporting oatmeal to the US”

Those readers of papers like FT, who can read statements like that, and do not feel like vomiting, prove themselves to be intellectual and immoral accomplices of the death of the many Venezuelans who are suffering from lack of foods and medicines. 

Western civilization world, if something like Venezuela happened in your country, would you like the world to behave as indifferent as you do?

Western civilization, “We did not know” might have worked previously, but is nowadays a completely unacceptable excuse.

@PerKurowski