March 31, 2014

Democracy goes way beyond the 1% vs. the 99% debate.

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Sir, I agree in much with what Edward Luce puts forward in his “ America’s democracy is fit for the 1 percent ” March 31 but, the issue of ...

Instead of QE, why not an ECB cheque to each European?

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Sir, Wolfgang Münchau comes strongly out in favor of a quantitative easing program of well over $1tn… among other “to get banks to sell ass...

Europe needs energy, indeed, but more than electricity human energy, that which is propelled by risk taking.

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Sir, Leif Johansson, the chairman of Ericsson and Astra Seneca, when urged by the FT to pick out one issue that needs to be addressed to m...
March 30, 2014

Believing too much in “the power of peace” can be hazardous to the health of your nation.

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Sir, I refer to Simon Kuper’s “ The surprising power of peace ”, March 29. It is always better to be skeptical and pleasantly surprised...

How do we rein in runaway obsessions with data, like that of the Basel Committee?

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Sir Tim Harford’s article “ Big mistake? ”, March 29, is just great. When Harford mentions that “Google’s own search algorithm moved th...
March 29, 2014

When and if taxing the wealthy, because of inequality, remember that governments are part of the problem.

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Sir, Thomas Piketty proposes to “ Save capitalism from the capitalists by taxing wealth ” March 29, and of course there’s nothing wrong wit...
March 28, 2014

On responding to Russia and on Europe’s decline, Churchill and von Bismarck might have differed from Osborne and Schäuble.

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Sir George Osborne and Wolfgang Schäuble write about responding to Russia in a “balanced and proportionate way”, “ The eurozone cannot dict...
March 27, 2014

With respect to increasing bank capital we need banks and regulators to be partners, not enemies.

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Sir I refer to Gina Chon and Camilla Hall’s “ Fed looks beyond bank’s financial targets ” March 27. As a result of regulators falling ...
March 26, 2014

Perhaps Otmar Issing should lower the volume of his preaching to Europe.

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Sir, in much I agree with what Otmar Issing writes in “ Get your finances in order and stop blaming Germany ”, March 26, though perhaps he ...

$100bn in legal settlements for banks also means $2tn less in bank lending capacity

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Sir Richard McGregor and Aaron Stanley write on FT’s first page “ Banks hit by $100bn in US legal settlements since crisis ” March 26. ...

If Europe (and America) does not free itself from runaway control freaks… game´s over.

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Sir, John Kay writes “ Regulators will get the blame for the stupidity of crowds ” March 26 though what is most urgent in the Western world...
March 25, 2014

More than “safer” we need to make our financial system more “functional”

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Sir, as an Executive Director in the World Bank, 2002-2004, during the Basel II discussions, with respect to big banks I said: “Knowing tha...
March 24, 2014

What is the use of a perfect banking union among imperfect banks?

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Sir, on March 24 you refer to “ A highly imperfect banking union ”, but leave out what is the most important fact, namely that this union i...

FT, you need more journalistic boldness to live up to your motto, “Without fear and without favour”

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Sir, again you publish the “ Boldness in Business ” extra in which you celebrate boldness. And yet you are still not been able to write abo...
March 23, 2014

The risk based capital requirements for banks represent a tragic crossroad of history

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Sir, I refer to Simon Kuper’s great description of the assassination in Sarajevo which initiated World War I, “ The crossroads of history ”...
March 21, 2014

Pray the future which gifted minds will prioritize is that of Venezuela, and not just that of the gifted minds, like Cisneros’.

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Sir, Gustavo Cisneros holds that “ Vatican diplomacy could be Venezuela’s salvation ”, March 21. I wonder how much diplomacy he believes is...
March 17, 2014

Europe, a perfect disunion of useful banks, is much better than a perfect union of useless banks

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Sir, Wolfgang Münchau holds that “ Europe should say no to a flawed banking union ”, March 17. Indeed, I agree, but not so much for the...
March 15, 2014

Sometimes there is even more homeland business going on outside the borders than within.

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Sir, Tim Harford writes “The world economy is far more integrated now. Some of this globalization is independent of national borders…”, “ T...
March 12, 2014

ECB should foremost help to eliminate, not neutralize, the distortions produced by risk based capital requirements for banks.

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Sir I refer to Martin Wolf’s “ The spectre of eurozone deflation ” March 12. In what can be done about that threat Wolf mentions that “the ...
March 08, 2014

The Basel Committee blocks Machievelli´s historical fortunas, while making our mis-fortunas worse.

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Sir, Timothy Garton Ash makes reference to “!historical luck, the fortuna that Niccolὸ Machiavelli calls the arbiter of half of the things ...

And what if the captain of the Titanic had unwittingly directly set the course on an iceberg?

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Sir, I refer to Tim Harford’s “ Let’s have some real-times economics ” March 8. Let’s suppose we have parents who like cookies and choc...
March 07, 2014

Why can’t lending to female entrepreneurs be leveraged as much as lending to “infallible” sovereigns?

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Sir, Gillian Tett writes about Goldman teaming up with the International Finance Corporation, the private sector lending arm of the World B...
March 06, 2014

FT, perhaps you should ask for some time out in order to collect your marbles.

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Sir I refer to your “ The BoE’s big test is yet to come ” March 6. You write “QE has increased wealth inequality” true, but then, sort ...
March 05, 2014

Britain, if you had oil revenue power concentrated like in Venezuela, yours could be even more of a ‘malandro’, a hoodlum, nation.

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Sir, I refer to 99.99% of what is currently written about Venezuela, like yours “ Venezuela: the ‘malandro’ nation ” March 5. If you’d ...
March 04, 2014

When fighting inequality, in a sustainable way, it is more important to distribute opportunities than to redistribute income.

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Sir Jonathan Ostry, a deputy director of the research department of the IMF holds that some recent research indicates that “Redistribution ...
March 03, 2014

Unfortunately, the fact that something is correctly stated does not suffice for it to be correctly understood

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Sir, John Authers writes “ Risk is greatest when there is no perception of risk ” March 3. Indeed that is what I have written to you and to...

To find a solution to Venezuela, you have to be clear about its problem.

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Sir, John Paul Rathbone, Andres Schipani and Mark Frank write “Venezuela: In search of a solution ” March 3. I am sorry, that neither V...

What’s the added value of bank regulators who only concern themselves with the risks bankers already perceive?

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Sir I refer to Martin Arnold´s “ Foreign banks scramble to calculate potential losses if crisis deepens [in Ukraine]", March 3, just ...
March 01, 2014

Risk weighted capital requirements for banks guarantee excessive exposures against little capital

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Sir, I refer to Martin Wolf’s lunch conversation with Andrew Smithers, “ I don’t have any faith in forecasts ” March 1. In it Wolf quot...
February 28, 2014

Capitals of ordinary citizens should also have rights to political asylum.

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Sir I refer to your “ Close the account on Swiss secrecy ” February 28. If I wanted to be politically correct, I guess I would have to loud...

Divorce counselors should urgently remind banks and regulators of the kids, the real economy.

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Sir I refer to Gillian Tett´s proposal of having conflict specialists, sort of “divorce lawyers”, handling some of the issues derived from ...
February 26, 2014

Indeed... why not a tax on too-big-to-fail-banks?

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Sir, I refer to James Politi’s and Gina Chon’s “ Big banks pledge to fight tax on assets ” February 26. In May 2003, more than a decade...
February 21, 2014

In order to rein in inequality, bank regulations must change too.

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Sir, I refer to Professor Robert H Wade’s letter “ In order to rein in inequality, market need to change ”, February 21. Therein Wade writ...
February 19, 2014

FT’s silence makes it unwittingly a lobbyist for “The Infallible” accessing bank credit on preferential terms

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Sir, I refer to Sarah Gordon’s Analysis on a serious lack of bank-credit to SME’s in Europe, “ Give them some credit ” February 19. And how...
February 17, 2014

Bank regulators, Basel Committee, Financial Stability Board, listen to Violet Crawley “Don’t be defeatist, it’s so middle class.”

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Sir, Lawrence Summers writes “Sooner or later inequality will have to be addressed. Much better that it be done by letting free markets ope...
February 15, 2014

No Mohamed El Erian, nowadays, extraordinarily dumb bank regulators, are making it all so much worse.

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Sir, Mohammed El Erian in reference to banks betting on risky emerging markets holds that “In some ways today’s financial sector is little ...
February 14, 2014

The “peskiest exceptional” that hit our banking system was dumb Basel Committee regulators.

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Sir, the LEX Column, February 14, when referring to French banks , writes about how hard it is to provide a shareholder’s return when “pesk...

With bank regulators like the Basel Committee the real economy needs non-banks.

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Sir, I refer to Gillian Tett’s “ Titans of finance have moved on from banks ” February 14. There she writes: “What is really striking i...

Getting rid of stupid risk-weighted bank capital requirements, that is a dog hair to write home about.

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Sir, I refer to Martin Wolf´s “ Hair of a dog risks a bigger hangover for Britain ” February 14. There Wolf writes: “It is widely beli...
February 13, 2014

Richard Lambert, before concerning himself with bankers’ education should think about bank regulators’

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Sir, I refer to John Gapper’s “ There is no such thing as the banking profession ” February 13. There Gapper writes that an option favo...
February 12, 2014

Tax income from protected intellectual property rights at a higher rate than income from when competing naked in the market

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Sir, Martin Wolf writes “Property rights are a social creation. The idea that a small minority should overwhelming benefit from new technol...
February 10, 2014

Daniėle Nouy, new chair of Single Supervisory Mechanism, should hear out those like me who detest current bank regulations.

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Sir, I refer to Sam Fleming´s, Alice Ross’s and Claire Jones’s “ ECB Super>regulator prepares to be unpopular ” February 10. Of cour...
February 05, 2014

And citizens could sue agencies for too good credit ratings of sovereigns, which caused governments to borrow too much.

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Sir, I refer to Stephen Foley’s and Guy Dinmore’s “ Italy eyes €234bn suit after ratings groups failed to value la dolce vita ” February 5....

Those responsible for Basel II should have been made yesterday’s men years ago

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Sir, in “ The return of yesterday´s men ”, February 5, you hold that Jean-Claude Juncker, Martin Schulz and Guy Verhofstadt “will not strik...

Income derived from protected intellectual property should be taxed at higher rates than income obtained from competing naked.

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Sir, Martin Wolf refers to “the role of rental income, particularly from intellectual property” as one explanation of “rising inequality of...
February 04, 2014

William Rhodes, worse than regulatory uncertainties is the current regulatory certainty.

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Sir, William Rhodes writes that "many other countries are challenged by the weakness of bank lending to productive, employment-generat...
February 01, 2014

Development is about the poor not needing help.

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Sir, Frank Vogl of The Partnership for Transparency Fund writes: “Citizen-led development to ensure the extremely poor in many communities ...

The purpose of a bank is not to fight Aids, but to make profits serving the financing needs of the real economy.

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Sir, Gillian Tett refers to BoA and Bono cooperating in fighting global aids “ An unlikely pact in making sweet music” January 1. And Tett...
January 31, 2014

There will not be any normalization of bank credit in Europe until regulators do a 180 degrees volte-face.

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Sir, Sarah Gordon writes that “While the region’s [highly credit rated] groups have gorged on cheap credit, its multitude of smaller compan...

When regulators exorcised primal risk-taking from the banks, they doomed our economies to decadence.

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Sir, Edmund Phelps writes that “Nations with once-dynamic economies will be helpless to recover their prosperity as long as they misunderst...
January 30, 2014

Sir, don’t you recognize insanity when you see it?

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Tobias Buck reports on how “banks from countries such as Spain and Italy borrow money cheaply from the European Central Bank to buy high-yi...
January 27, 2014

Risk weighted capital requirements for banks means some will receive too much credit, too cheap, others too little, too expensive.

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Sir, John Plender in “ How to spend $2.8tn of corporate cash ” FTfm January 27, writes “The financial sector is there to intermediate betwe...
January 24, 2014

Real banking reform will only happen when regulators understand and acknowledge what they did wrong, and correct it.

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Sir, Martin Arnold writes “Regulators are forcing banks to hold much more capital and to reduce their leverage, which is making some areas ...
January 22, 2014

The distortive risk weighted capital requirements for banks will haunt Ben Bernanke and Martin Wolf

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Sir, Martin Wolf writes that contemporary “banks are constrained not by reserves but by their perception of risk and rewards of additional ...
January 18, 2014

Excessive exposures to what is “absolutely safe” by regulated banks could be much more dangerous than whatever lurks in the shadows.

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Sir Tracy Alloway writes “Shadow banks, we are told, are unregulated institutions that lurk in the dark corners of the financial system – a...

What contains “expected losses” can also contain the “unexpected profits” we need for increased productivity.

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Sir, in “ Two challenges for the global economy ”, January 18, with respect to a decline in economic productivity, you mention: “The soluti...
January 17, 2014

OCC, before asking banks to raise their standards of risk management, should stop regulators' distorting parallel risk managing

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Sir, Tom Braithwaite and Camilla Hall report that “The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it plan to raise the standards it exp...