Showing posts with label financial stability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label financial stability. Show all posts

April 18, 2017

Could not artificial intelligence, AI, sometimes prove more intelligent and socially concerned than humans?

Sir, John Thornhill writes: “Mireille Hildebrandt, professor of law and technology at the Free University of Brussels, says one of the dangers of AI is that we become overly reliant on “mindless minds” that we do not fully comprehend. She argues that the purpose and effect of these algorithms must therefore be testable and contestable in a courtroom. “If you cannot meaningfully explain your system’s decisions then you cannot make them,” she says.” “Only human intelligence can solve the AI challenge” April 18.

Indeed, but that should go for humans too! For instance bank regulators should be hauled in front of a courtroom, in order to answer some very basic questions about their risk weighted capital requirements for banks.

I ask this because I am absolutely sure that, if AI regulated our banks, then at least the following two questions would have been asked:

What is the purpose of banks? And something like John A Shedd’s “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are for” would have been considered.

What causes big bank crises? And something like Voltaire’s “May God defend me from my friends, I can defend myself from my enemies” would have been considered.

As a consequence we would not be having our banks being regulated to avoid the risk taking the future of our grandchildren need, for no real bank stability purpose at all.

Here follows some of the questions that I would like to ask the current bank regulators in front of a court, since they do not even acknowledge hearing these.


@PerKurowski

February 20, 2016

The regulators’ search for financial stability has distorted the allocation of bank credit to the real economy.

Sir, you hold “G20 governments would do well to recognize that financial instability can rapidly translate into trouble for the real economy.” “Central banks alone cannot conjure growth” February 20

Sir, you should know by now the regulators’ search for financial stability, has already created much trouble for real economy.

You quote Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, with “The central bank is neither God nor a magician who can turn uncertainties into certainties.”

The correct reply to that would be: So why then do central banks, as regulators, act like God or magicians arrogantly imposing their besserwisser founded credit risk weighted capital requirements for banks?

If you allow banks to leverage more their equity (and the support they receive from society/taxpayers) with assets ex ante perceived as safe, than with assets perceived as risky; then what is perceived or deemed to be “safe” will produce higher risk adjusted returns on equity than what is “risky”.

And anyone who does not understand how that distorts the allocation of bank credit on Main Street, has never walked on Main Street; has never seen how difficult it is for SMEs and entrepreneurs to access bank credit even without the regulators making that harder for them.

And if you do not understand how useless such distortion is, because major bank crises never ever result from excessive exposures to something ex ante perceived as risky, then you have not read financial history.

Who authorized bank regulators to decide on the allocation of bank credit to the real economy?

Or is it really so bad that banks regulators are not even aware of that they distort the allocation of bank credit to the real economy?

PS. In 1999 in an Op-Ed I wrote: “The possible Big Bang that scares me the most is the one that could happen the day those genius bank regulators in Basel, playing Gods, manage to introduce a systemic error in the financial system, which will cause its collapse”

@PerKurowski ©

September 09, 2013

And now, in the age of transparency, the European Commission is promoting blissful ignorance. Holy mo! Back to the Dark Ages!

Sir, I refer to Steve Johnson’s “Money market ratings ‘outlawed’” of September 9 in your FTfm.

There Johnson writes of a proposal by the European Commission to ban money market funds from soliciting or financing a rating from a credit rating agency” so as “to end the risk of sudden massive redemptions” from a fund in the wake of a rating downgrade, [thereby[] strengthening the financial stability”.

What can we say? Now the European Commission is promoting blissful ignorance. Holy mo! Back to the Dark Ages!

Why do they not just impose a little note after each credit rating stating who paid for it? And let the market take it from there?