March 13, 2012
Sir, Professor Joseph Stiglitz writes that “The American labour market remains in shambles” March 13. Of course, but how could it be otherwise! We are suffering under the thumb of thick as a brick bank regulators who give banks huge incentives to lend or invest in anything officially perceived as not-risky, like triple-A rated securities and infallible sovereigns, and to avoid like pest what is officially perceived as risky, namely those most important new job creators of all, the small businesses and the entrepreneurs.
In various occasions I have with no luck tried to explain to Professor Stiglitz that excessive bank exposures to what was erroneously ex ante perceived as absolutely not risky, does not really match up with excessive risk-taking, but is more the result of an excessive regulatory induced risk-adverseness.
Much of our current problems derive from the fact that for the aristocrats of economic, such as Nobel Prize winners, bank regulations are something very mundane, almost low class, and to be treated with the same importance given to an Ikea sofa assembly instruction.