In not knowing what he is doing, Greece’s Alexis Tsipras has a lot of company, among which is the Basel Committee.

Henry Foy and Kevin Hope write that a Greek MP said of Alexis Tsipras: “He is charming, good-looking and has a sound grasp of powerful messages, but he has no idea what he is doing.” “Enigmatic leader cuts divisive figure as country faces jeopardy” July 4.

I completely agree but in order to put that sad fact in its correct perspective let me also say that regulators who between June 2004 and November 2009 allowed banks to lend to the Government of Greece against only 1.6 percent in capital, which implies an authorized leverage of over 60 to 1 when lending to Greece… also had no idea of what they were doing.

And so banks offered to give the Greek government a lot of credit... and what Greek government could have said no to such gifts?

Greek citizens, beware of Basel Committee’s bank regulators bringing gifts to your government!

@PerKurowski