May 27, 2011

Too much longing for stability creates the perfect storm conditions for instability

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Sir, Samuel Brittan refers to “artificial suppression of volatilities in the name of stability” “The follies and fallacies of our forecaster...
May 26, 2011

A quiz for the candidates to Managing Director of IMF

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Sir, as a humble contribution for the selection of the best Managing Director of the IMF may I submit the following little quiz the candidat...
May 25, 2011

Choosing based on merits defined by the group is often another source of dangerous group-think.

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Sir I could not agree more with the arguments presented by Martin Wolf when he writes that “Europe should not control the IMF” May 25, summi...
May 23, 2011

Save us from these irrational and hysterically risk-adverse bank regulators

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Sir, Patrick Jenkins in “State lending targets are grist to the mill of history” (by the way a much too smart title for someone dumb like me...

Regulators should take the beam out of their own eyes

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Sir, Richard Lambert makes a reference to a research paper by Andrew Haldane, the Executive Director for Financial Stability, and Richard ...
May 20, 2011

Bank regulators are still acting dumb!

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Sir, Tom Braithwaite, Brooke Masters and Jeremy Grant report on the current status of financial regulation in “A shield asunder” May 20.   W...
May 18, 2011

The mother of all boundless optimists must be the bank regulator

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Sir, John Plender asks “How long before we confront a new financial crisis? Usually a severe shock to the financial system damps risk appeti...
May 04, 2011

Too well tuned?

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Sir , John Plender in “It’s time to rewrite fashionable finance ideas”, May 4, refers to the need for some redundancy in the system so as ...
May 03, 2011

Risk-weighting is more than a game, it needs a purpose too.

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Sir, Patrick Jenkins reports that Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority told the Financial Times. “We have spent a lot o...
May 02, 2011

Would I have been better off with a Rockville Gazette than with the Financial Times?

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You journalist who write about banking regulations, should you not find it somewhat curious at least?

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Friend If you as reporters on finance and bank regulations observe that someone has asked the global bank regulators in the Basel Committee...
April 30, 2011

The Emperor in Basel is freaking naked!

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Sir, all general bank crisis, as well as most individual bank defaults, have NOT resulted from lending or investing excessively in something...
April 29, 2011

Is the Basel Committee´s mistake a taboo in FT?

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Sir, Aline van Duyn and Nicole Bullock report “Banks braced for knock-on effect of credit ratings” April 29. There, and though they refer to...
April 28, 2011

Neville Chamberlain’s Munich vs. Regulator Draghi’s Basel

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Sir reading your “Draghi does it best”, April 28, makes me want to ask: How come a Neville Chamberlain coming back from Munich with his “Pie...
April 27, 2011

Europe needs and merits someone better than Mario Draghi

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Sir, when Guy Dinmore, Quentin Peel and Peggy Hollinger report” Mario Draghi poised for ECB job”, April 27, they refer to "his prominen...

Wimps! Should our banks be as safe and useless as a mattress stashed away in Fort Knox?

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In “ Protecting finance from its demons ”, April 26, you hold, we face the choice of “protecting the economy from finance” or “protecting f...

To achieve a sensible pricing of risk, you need to avoid any opaque risk discrimination

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Sir Francesco Guerrera writes “In the post-crisis world, risk must be sensibly priced” April 26 and of course he is right, because it was no...
April 23, 2011

We need to bring the credit ratings down to earth

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Sir, John Authers´ “Easter parade of worries over Uncle Sam´s credit”, April 24, refers to the rating agencies wielding “real power”, but th...
April 22, 2011

If not the dollar, then no other fiat currency either

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Most of the world´s concern with the dollar is in fact not with the dollar itself but more of the “if not the dollar then what?” type, since...
April 21, 2011

The Torturer and the Haircut

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Sir, your “Europe must use borrowed time well” April 21, reminds us of how scary it is when we see someone calculating with complex formulas...

If you thing “sustainability” is important, propose something that impacts it sustainably.

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Sir, if you really cared so much about “Sustainability” in finance, as you want for the world to see you do, then you would be arguing for ...
April 20, 2011

If you are short on capital you naturally go where less of it is needed.

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Sir, John Plender in “Why the rush by UK banks into property needs watching” April 20, asks “Why the enthusiasm for an asset class that has ...

Are we to allow Solvency II do to our insurance companies what Basel II did to our banks?

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Sir, Paul J Davies in “ Capital rules raise fears over insurers’ risk appetite ” April 20, though correct in so many aspects sadly makes pre...

Though the outlook is for hurricanes you have not yet seen the roofs flying, just yet.

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Sir Martin Wolf, as an economist, stubbornly refuses to even consider those financial regulations, or may I dare to say global capital contr...
April 19, 2011

Stealing and rent seeking has nothing to do with “social contracts”

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Sir, your reporters, on the issue of fuel subsidies, April 19, wrote: “For oil producers such as Venezuela… fuel subsidies are part of the s...

Not “bad” bank assets, bank capital heavy assets

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Sir Francesco Guerrera and Patrick Jenkins report “Citi in sales of bad assets as Basel III rules loom” April 19. The titling is not that ac...

How long are regulators allowed to persist with their foolishness?

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Sir I refer to so many news, about when a downgrading of credit ratings cause much havoc, like for instance Nicole Bullock´s report on April...
April 14, 2011

The truth about the crisis that the different silos, including FT’s, does not want or cannot see.

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Sir, if all sovereign and private bank clients were paying the banks exactly the same risk-premiums, then the risk-weights used in Basel II ...
April 13, 2011

Ireland’s taxpayers?... and what about holding the Basel Committee accountable?

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Lorenzo Bini Smaghi argues that since countries like Ireland took decisions aimed at ensuring a more benign environment for their financial ...

The risk-weights is what most is causing the tumor growth of the ‘too big to fail’

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Sir, John Kay in “The nightmare of taking on “too big to fail” April 13, questions the overall adequacy of a 10 percent capital requirement ...

Let banks capitalize on Darwinians benefits too

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Sir, John Kay in “The nightmare of taking on “too big to fail” April 13, mentions that Britain’s Independent Banking Commission “has also re...
April 12, 2011

FT, what is it that you see that I cannot see? Please tell me. I beg you!

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Sir if you are capable of understanding that “a bank holding company might have an incentive to seek out riskier assets to compensate for hi...
April 07, 2011

If you account for perfect information twice, you are valuing it imperfectly

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Sir, suppose you have perfect credit information… what should you use it for? To set the interest rates you will charge, or to set the capit...
April 06, 2011

To rebalance the flows we need to rebalance the regulations.

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Sir, Martin Wolf in “Waiting for the great rebalancing”, April 6, writes about “an ‘uphill’ flow from poor to rich countries, predominantly ...

Blefuscu’s and Lilliput’s bank regulators at war

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Sir, John Plender’s “UK’s banking climate is making the US look attractive”, April 6, refers to the debate about the basic capital requireme...
April 05, 2011

“We need to learn how to fail”

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Sir, in the first session of IFC’s and World Bank’s “Building Competitiveness” FPD Forum 2011 , April 4, titled “Youth, Employment, and Rev...

If Solvency II would be something like Basel II

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Sir, in “EU reform plan alarms insurers” April 5, representatives of insurance companies express some reservations about the regulatory pack...
April 04, 2011

Where do you get the “more productive” from Mr. Barney Frank?

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Sir, Barney Frank in “ Greenspan is wrong: we can reform finance ” April 4 writes “This combined with the new Basel III capital standards a...
April 01, 2011

The Basel Committee makes a shocking confession!

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Sir, the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, speaking for all sophisticated bank regulators around the world, issued today an urgent st...

SDR are just a sort of “In Gods We Trust”

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Sir, the Special Drawing Rights of the International Monetary Fund SDRs, although their issuance can provide liquidity, is not really a curr...
March 25, 2011

Confusion not only still lurks, it’s getting bigger!

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Sir, LEX in “ Who knows what evil lurch ” March 25, refers to Andrew Haldane, the Bank of England’s executive director for financial stabili...

A not so simple simple question to FT

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If banks, by means of capital requirements based on the perceived risk of default are given special incentives to go to what is officially p...
March 24, 2011

The credit rating agent’s cloister conundrum

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Sir, everywhere we turn we read about the impacts of upgrading and downgrading of the credit ratings, as when Jennifer Hughes reports “CLO r...
March 23, 2011

And what about a special intellectual property monopoly tax?

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Sir with today´s technology I am not that sure John Lennon will never ever sing another song, as John Kay holds in “It´s mad to give my heir...
March 22, 2011

Another FT Special Report on Risk Management in Finance that did not mention the risk of regulations

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Sir, you publish a special report titled “Risk Management: Finance” March 22. In it not once do you refer to the fact that the current supre...
March 18, 2011

I denounce!

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Sir I hereby formally denounce that your financial regulators, in following the precepts of the Basel Committee, are causing damage that cou...

FT is unbelievably inconsistent!

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Sir suppose that the market, which includes banks, looks at the credit information, which includes credit ratings, and decides that the risk...
March 12, 2011

Did Inside Job do an inside job on The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?

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Sir, in “Why the public wants its pound of banker’s flesh” March 12, Gillian Tett refers to the Oscar won for best documentary by Inside Job...
March 11, 2011

Monothematic regulators are really not interested in interest rate risk

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Sir, Gillian Tett asks on March 11 “Have we really learnt lessons of 1994´s sharp rate spikes?” The answer must be NO, foremost because regu...

Because of way too optimistic expected returns, pension funds will not be able to deliver.

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Sir, Martin Wolf writes “ Pension reform makes sense up to a point ” March 11 and I hope he takes the opportunity to also look in at the rat...
March 10, 2011

FT, dare to look beneath the tip of the iceberg!

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Sir, Jennifer Hughes in “Bank dip into tool box for Basel III” March 10, insists, as you all do, on keeping her eyes firm on the tip of the ...
March 07, 2011

You need some warning labels on the transparency pills offered

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Sir it is not “when citizens do not know how much the governments are paid” in resource revenues that lies behind the real resource curse… i...

Financial rules must do more for development…anywhere!

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As a former Executive Director of the World Bank (2002-2004) I am extremely pleased to see Vincenzo La Via of the World Bank speaking up on ...

Abundant surrealism is present in the discussions on bank regulations and stress tests

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Sir, Patrick Jenkins and Brooke Masters report “Europe’s bank regulator attempts to restore faith” March 7. In it we read again experts opin...
March 04, 2011

Openness is just a placebo when lifting a real resource-curse

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Sir, whenever a government receives in net resource revenues more than 5% of GDP, 15% of its exports, or 25% of all tax revenues received fr...
March 03, 2011

Don´t give microfinance a blanket approval!

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Sir in “Dhaka´s spiteful attack on Yunus” March 3, you write “microlenders have small margins in spite of their high interest rates… their l...

Sorry FT… it just seems like the same dumb old banking to me!

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Sir in “Brave new banking” March 3 you write that “financial markets were guided less by an invisible hand than by the hands of a blind”. Th...
March 02, 2011

Beware of cuddling up too much with comforting regulatory teddy-bears, they could be poisonous.

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Sir, John Kay in “Don’t blame luck when your models misfire” March 2, gets to the core of our problems with the regulatory monopoly of the B...
February 25, 2011

It is time we give our banks a purpose different than that of surviving.

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Sir, Mort Zuckerman in “How we can get America working again” February 25, as so many do, identifies the lack of jobs as one or perhaps the ...
February 23, 2011

Asking the pusher for help?

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Sir, Martin Wolf holds that “Ireland needs help with its debt” February 23. But when looking at the help Ireland currently gets by way of cr...
February 22, 2011

A lottery for the rich!!!

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Sir, Peter Orzag the former director at the US office of Management and Budget recently wrote about the role of lotteries in raising savings...

When democracy dies in the cradle

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Sir, Arvind Subramanian is absolutely correct arguing that democratic forces stand no chance against the economic rents of a State, “Arab sp...
February 19, 2011

Martin Wolf and the rest of us baby-boomers might soon be invited to visit an “ättestupa”

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Sir, Martin Wolf looks to explain “ Why the world´s youth is in a revolting state of mind ” February 19. He fails to sufficiently transmit ...
February 18, 2011

Current banking regulations is a venomous potion for smal businesses

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Sir, Vince Cable the UK Secretary of state for business, in “Private recovery is the only potion for growth” February 18, worries about “gro...

About lights and regulations

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Sir in “Regulating finance” February 18 you refer to “But the light is here”. A fixed lamppost giving light is regulation, a regulator ill...
February 16, 2011

We share John Kay´s miseries

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Sir what John Kay describes in “Public projects obscured by private finances” February 16, is very much what happened in many developing cou...
February 11, 2011

The “exceptionally low costs of borrowing” are not for everyone.

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Sir, Martin Wolf in “A strategy for growth that dares to be radical” February 11 speaks of “using the current exceptionally low costs of bor...

A proposal for strengthening the sustainability of the dollar as an international reserve currency

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Sir I refer to the recent discussions on international reserve currencies. There are only two possibilities for an international reserve c...
February 10, 2011

The IMF and the World Bank did not listen then… and, unfortunately, they still do not listen enough

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Sir Alan Beattie in “Watchdog says IMF missed crisis risks” February 10 makes reference to ignored warnings such as those delivered in 2005 ...

Perhaps it is the regulator we need to bring home

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Sir, Robert W. Jenkins in a letter titled “Call the bankers’ bluff in this cat and mouse game” makes some good comments about the implied th...