July 01, 2021

Do we know of a display of hubris greater than “risk weighted bank capital requirements”?

Sir, Gillian Tett in “Economists can’t predict the future — policy should reflect that” July 1 wrote: “Robert Rubin, Peter Orszag and Joseph Stiglitz called on economists to embrace ‘copious amounts of humility’ when projecting the future.”

One of the magnificent displays of hubris, the antonym of humility, came into being when bank regulators imposed, risk weighted bank capital requirements, as if they, from their desks, have any real bankable notion, of what the future really entails.

And on that, this trio, as the rest of the Academia, as Gillian Tett, as FT too, have all kept total silence.