Europe, without cleaning up your bank regulations, all what ECB, Brussels and governments do, is useless and dangerous.

Sir, we have bank regulators allowing banks to hold much less equity when lending to a sovereign, than when lending to a small businesses or an entrepreneur; and we have ECB planning to buy up more sovereign debt.

That evidences a public policy based on the assumption that government bureaucrats know better how to invest in an effective way for the economy, and for the society, other people’s money, than what small businesses and entrepreneurs can do when pursuing their own dreams. That is truly a shaky ground on which to salvage the future, of for instance Europe.

And all that nonsense derives from that utterly absurd belief that governments, sovereigns, are less risky, because they have the capacity to tax its own people or to print money.

Sir, whether you stimulate the economy in Europe with ECB’s planned QEs, helicopter drops of money on citizens, or fiscal deficits, does not really matter, neither will work; as long as you have regulations that hinder credit from going freely to where it is most wanted and needed.

And therefore it is so hard for me to understand how Wolfgang Münchau (and You, and most other) can suggest, or evaluate programs, without referring to the need to correct this fundamental flaw, “An imperfect compromise for the Eurozone” January 26.

PS. Münchau writes “Germany’s retirement system — where pensions are not invested in the stock market, but in low-yielding government bonds — is not equipped for an environment in which interest rates are at zero for long periods”. Does he think that system to be better prepared if ECB is too successful fighting deflation?