October 04, 2014

In terms of dangerous hubris, Bill Gross is nothing when compared to bank regulators.

Sir, I refer to Gillian Tett’s “Hubris, politics and finance make a toxic mix”, October 4.

She makes many good points and I am sure a Daedalus Trust can play a very important role as a hubris buster…that is as long as it can keep the hubris of its own hubris slayers in check.

But here the center of Ms. Tett’s concerns on excessive hubris is Bill Gross, ex-Pimco, and he is really nothing compared to the hubris that is still rampant among bank regulators. Their mind-boggling hubris caused them to believe they could, with their risk-weighted capital requirements for banks, even act as the risk-managers for the whole banking world.

Ms. Tett reminds us of slaves who walked alongside victorious Roman generals reminding them they were mere mortals. That is exactly the role for a FT, and with its motto FT shows it knows it, but, over the recent years, it has too often instead fed the hubris of some of those most at risk, like for instance "whatever it takes" Mario Draghi… in whom it trusts so so much.

For the last decade I have diligently walked along FT, trying to un-requested perform the role of such a slave. Unfortunately those at FT seem not to be anything like a Roman general wanting to hear the truth.