March 16, 2009

There is exactly where the going forwards must begin

Sir Tony Jackson really shows he got his priorities right with his “Proper or improper, banks need society’s control” March 16. This is exactly the type of issues that should be exhaustedly discussed before you sit down and start to try to regulate the activities of the banks.

It is exactly the total lack of a reference to what the purpose of the banks should be that allowed the regulators to build up regulation systems almost exclusively based on the concept of minimum capital requirements based on perceived risks, as if that is all that risk is all about, as if avoiding defaults is the only objective for our banks.

Jackson’s article deserved an op-ed place and I sure hope he manages to start a discussion on the simple basics before hiding in the opacity of the sophistications.