Martin Wolf, the uncertainty of whether those who govern us really know what they’re doing is always upon us.

Sir, Martin Wolf writes: “Productivity is not everything, but in the long run it is almost everything… But the prospects for productivity are…the most important uncertainty affecting the economic prospects of the British people. Is it reasonable to expect a return to buoyant pre-crisis productivity growth? Will productivity continue to stagnate? Or will it end up somewhere in between?” “The age of uncertainty is upon us” March 18.

Mr. Wolf, for the umpteenth time, obsessively, I do not understand how you and so many other can so obsessively ignore that if you tell banks they can leverage their equity more with what is safe than with what is risky; so that they can earn higher expected risk adjusted returns on equity with what is perceived or deemed to be safe, than with what is risky; that then banks will foremost be refinancing the safer past while ignoring too much the credit needs of the always riskier future. And since then productivity is not been given the chances it deserves, the prospects for its improvement must be really lousy.

“The age of uncertainty is upon us”? Please when did we have an age of certainty?

Current regulators regulate banks without having defined their purpose, and base those capital requirements for banks that should cover for the unexpected, on the expected credit risk. Those facts evidence the major uncertainty we always face, namely whether those who govern us have the faintest idea of what they’re doing.

@PerKurowski ©