No remittances without representation!

Sir, you write “Poor government plagues Central America”, “Central America needs a bold gesture from the US”, FT April 22.Those migrants who often see no choice in life than to depart, with their family remittances produced their efforts far away from home, too often only help to keep in power those who caused them to depart.

An ambitious process such as that one referred to by FT, requires time to acquire political feasibility, and moments of sharp internal divisions might not be the best moment to find it.

In this respect I argue that to help the migrants acquire much more political representation in their homelands, would be a better place to start.

And the migrants sure have economic ammunition they could use. For some of these countries the GDP they help generate in e.g., USA, is larger than the whole GDP registered in their respective homeland.

Why are tariffs on trade with others, worse than tariffs on access to bank credit for your own?

Sir, I refer to Martin Wolf’s spirited defense of free trade and not less spirited attack on Donald Trump for having turned the US into “a rogue superpower, hostile, among many other things, to the fundamental norms of a trading system based on multilateral agreement and binding rules.” “The US-China clash challenges the world” May 22.

Do I disagree? Not really, except noting that at least Trump follows the instinct to protect his own.

But where was/is Martin Wolf when bank regulators, for instance, with Basel II, require banks to hold 8% in capital when lending to their own unrated entrepreneurs, but allow his banks to lend to any other sovereign AAA to AA rated against no capital at all, or to any other foreign AAA to AA rated entrepreneur against only 1.6% in capital?

Sir, anyone who argues those differences in capital requirements are not de facto tariffs on the access to bank credit, have no idea of what they are talking about.

Truth is that since trade is about today, but credit is about tomorrow, I truly believe the Basel Committee and their affiliate regulators are, with their tariffs on the access to bank credit, doing much more damage than a Donald Trump.

But of course you dare not to favor the opinion of little me over that of your own chief economic commentator.

@PerKurowski

In USA, for the patterns of default, differences between states as to “deficiency judgments”, should matter.

Wikipedia: “A deficiency judgment is an unsecured money judgment against a borrower whose mortgage foreclosure sale did not produce sufficient funds to pay the underlying promissory note, or loan, in full.”

Sir, the default patterns Gillian Tett refers to in “Driven to default”, March 14 will, in the USA, of course much depend of in what state the defaults occur, given the great differences in allowing or not “Deficiency Judgments”

Has there been any research on this issue? Not that I know off. But that is not surprising given how the fundamental mistake with current risk weighted capital requirements has also been widely ignored.

@PerKurowski

Europe, if you spoil your kids too much they will not grow strong. That goes for banks too.

Sir, Patrick Jenkins analyzes several concerns expressed about European banks when policymakers gathered to mark the retirement of Danièle Nouy from ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM); who is to be succeeded by Andrea Enria as the Eurozone’s chief banking regulator. “As European banks regulator retires, six big challenges remain” December 11.

The former Grand-Chair of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, in his recent book “Keeping at it”, co-written with Christine Harper, recounts the following when, in 1986, the G10 central banking group tried to establish an international consensus on bank regulations and capital requirements:

“The US practice had been to asses capital adequacy by using a simple “leverage ratio”-in other words, the bank’s total assets based compared with the margin of capital available to absorb any losses on those assets. (Historically, before, the 1931 banking collapse, a ten percent ratio was considered normal)

The Europeans, as a group, firmly insisted upon a “risk-based” approach, seemingly more sophisticated because it calculated assets based on how risky they seemed to be. They felt it was common sense that certain kind of assets –certainly including domestic government bonds but also home mortgages and other sovereign debt- shouldn’t require much if any capital. Commercial loans, by contrast, would have strict and high capital requirements, whatever the credit rating might be.”

Sir, even though the Basel Accord was signed in 1988 and further developed in 2004 with Basel II, and with which the European risk weighting was adopted, I am sure we can trace the differences between US and Europe banks to these original differences on capital requirements. The US has been much more strict on capital than Europe. In fact the problems with American banks during the 2008 crisis were mostly restricted to those investment banks, which supervised by the SEC, had been allowed in 2004 to adopt Basel II criteria.

In Europe meanwhile banks could do with much less capital, which meant that much more was left over for bankers’ bonuses. In essence, Europe’s banks were dangerously spoiled. The challenge these now faces is having to substitute their equity minimizing financial engineers with good old time loan officers; and convince the capital markets of that. Good luck!

@PerKurowski

How long are you going to allow statist bank regulators subsidize the public sector borrowings with a zero percent risk weighting?

Sir I refer to Kate Allen’s and Chris Giles write “The total stock of OECD countries’ sovereign debt has increased from $25tn in 2008 to more than $45tn this year” “Rising tide of sovereign debt to hit rich nation budgets, warns OECD” February 23.

I do not know what the total OECD debt was in 1988, but the US public debt was t$2.6 trillion when then statist bank regulators assigned it a 0% risk weight. At end of 2017, much because of the subsidies imbedded in that 0% weight, US’s public debt was now US$20.2 trillion. It still has a 0% risk weight.

In 2004, in a letter you published I wrote: We wonder how many Basel propositions it will take before they start realizing the damage they are doing by favoring so much bank lending to the public sector. In some developing countries, access to credit for the private sector is all but gone, and the banks are up to the hilt in public credits.

I came then from a development country, Venezuela, but that comment clearly applies to the OECD too.

In December 2009, on the eve of the new decade, FT also published a letter in which I wrote: “My worst nightmare is that unmanageable Versailles-type public debts will become fertile ground for those monsters that thrive on hardships”. That nightmare is only getting worse and worse.

@PerKurowski

More important than air traffic control is to place bank regulation in a public/private non-profit entity

Sir, Gillian Tett discusses the head of the US Council of Economic Advisers’, Gary Cohn, plan to take the air traffic control system away from the Federal Aviation Administration and place it in a non-profit entity, funded by public and private finance. “Canada inspires US reform plans to take off”, April 7.

Sounds like a good idea but, much more important for both America and Canada, would be to place bank regulations in the hands of such an entity… like a BankReg.org!

I mean would BankReg.org have gotten away, like current bank regulators have, with regulating banks without defining the purpose of banks? No way Jose!

I mean would BankReg.org have gotten away, like current bank regulators have, to regulate banks without empirical analysis of what has caused the bank crises in the past? No way Jose!

I mean would BankReg.org have gotten away, like current bank regulators have, with making it harder than it always has been for “risky” SMEs and entrepreneurs to access bank credit? No way Jose!

I mean would BankReg.org have gotten away, like current bank regulators have, with risk-weighing the Sovereign with 0%, and We the People with 100%, and thereby through the Bathroom Window introducing runaway statism? No way Jose!

I mean would BankReg.org have gotten away, like current bank regulators have, with risk-weighing the dangerous corporate AAA rated with 20%, while assigning a 150% risk weight to the so innocuous below BB- rated? No way Jose!

I mean would BankReg.org have gotten away, like current bank regulators have, with giving banks incentives to finance the “safe” basements were our unemployed kids can live over those, who though riskier, could provide our kids with the jobs they need in order to also have kids and basements? No way Jose!

I mean would those working in BankReg.org have gotten away, like current bank regulators have, with not having some psychological tests made on them in order to guarantee their suitability? No way Jose!

I mean would BankReg.org have gotten away, like current bank regulators have, with causing the 2007-08 crisis without suffering any consequences for it… in some cases even being promoted? No way Jose! We would have sued and fined its technocrats for their last socks!

I mean would FT have treated BankReg.org as leniently as it has treated the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, the Financial Stability Board, IMF and other clearly failed bank regulators? No way Jose!

PS. Here are some of my questions looking for answers

@PerKurowski

The real winners of President Trump’s animosity towards cars built in Mexico could be robot manufacturers.

Sir, Peter Campbell and Jude Webber refer to “Mr Trump’s ire on Tuesday, when he tweeted that GM should face a “big border tax” for importing cars from Mexico.” “Trump to give Mexican cartrade a bumpy ride”, January 5.

I have no idea of President Trump’s financial holdings, but should he own shares in robot manufacturers he should be careful about a conflict of interest, as leashing out against Mexican car jobs is a great and direct way to increase the demand for robots in the USA.

PS. Anyone who argues in favor of minimum wages should, for the same reason, also be required to disclose any personal interest in the robot industry.

PS. Off the cuff formula: Jobs lost in Mexico minus jobs gained in USA equals new sale of robots.

PS. Let robots make us an offer we can't refuse

Like bank-managed risk based capital models, should children also set the nutrition values that determine their diet?

Sir, James Shotter writes about differences of opinion between American and European bank regulators, with respect to allowing big banks to use their own risk models to help determine how much capital they should hold. “Bank rules benefit only US, says Deutsche chief” November 19.

Sir, knowing that banks have huge incentives to reduce the capital they need to hold, in order to by means of higher leverages obtain the highest returns on equity possible, that is perhaps the greatest, but far from the only display of naiveté by the Basel Committee and the Financial Stability Board.

It is like allowing children to set the nutritional values that will determine their diet like for chocolate cake, ice cream, broccoli and spinach.

In this discussion the relevant question is: “European regulators, do you believe European banks to be genetically or by some other reason more disposed than US bankers to resist the temptation of high returns on equity and bonuses?”

If the answer is “Yes”, so be it, and then the market will evaluate that answer. My bet is that the market will long-term prefer better capitalized banks… as well as trusting more regulating nannies that trust less the children in their care.

“Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s financial regulation chief, said… he would not accept changes that significantly increased how much capital European banks had to hold.”

Is that so? Does he really want US banks to become stronger than the European under his watch?

Clearly there is a conflict between wanting the banks to hold more capital with wanting the banks to also serve the credit needs of weak economies. But there are ways to harmonize, like grandfathering any changes in the capital rules meaning leaving them as is for all the current assets of banks, and, for instance, applying a fixed 8 percent capital requirement for all new assets.

@PerKurowski

Compared to the Basel Committee’s statism and dangerous risk-aversion, Trump seems like a minor threat

Sir, John Kay discussing the election of Trump writes: “The post-cold war settlement that Francis Fukuyama characterised as the end of history — the combination of lightly regulated capitalism and liberal democracy — carried the seeds of its own destruction. The hubris that legitimized greed and proclaimed the primacy of shareholder value led to the global financial crisis of 2008 and, more generally, undermined the legitimacy of capitalist organization. “At last, the post-crisis political reckoning” November 12.

No! I hold instead that because of the Basel Accord of 1988, one year before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and which for the purpose of the capital requirements for banks set the risk weight for the sovereign at 0%, and for us We the People at 100%; the world has nothing to do with “lightly regulated capitalism and liberal democracy”; and all to do with “hubris [and ideology] that legitimized the greed and proclaimed the primacy [not of] shareholders" but of government bureaucrats, of the AAArisktocracy, and in this case of some naturally willing partners, the banks.

If the financial crisis of 2008 should have undermined anything, that is the statism and the risk aversion that resulted from allowing biased and inept technocrats to regulate.

We now live in a world in which the financing of basements, where unemployed youth can live with parents, is much favored over the financing of SMEs and entrepreneurs, those who could better generate the future jobs our young need to also afford becoming parents.

Sir, I fully agree that the election of Donald Trump as president of the USA, because of many of his utterances during the elections, raises some very serious concerns. That said I find it very hard to believe that he will be allowed to impact the world so negatively during the next four year, as the bank regulators have done during now soon three decades.

Risk-taking is the oxygen of any development. If you hinder it, the economy is bound to stall and fall.

God make us daring!

@PerKurowski

10-year US government bonds yields 1.97%. Fed declares an inflation target of 2%. Is buying those bonds a prepaid haircut?

Sir, today, Friday the 13th, February 2015, I read on your first page that a 10-year US government bond yields 1.97%. And I have a question for you. If the Fed tells us that they are targeting a 2% inflation, if I purchase that bond, would that be sort of a prepaid haircut?

Is a 3 dollar per ticket tombola, to meet president Obama, really a comme il faut political fund-driving mechanism?

Sir I refer to the issue of fundraising raised by Edward Luce in “A farewell to trust: Obama´s Germany syndrome” July 14

Even though I am not a US citizen and have therefore no right to vote, I have recently gotten some emails where Michelle Obama addresses me very kindly with a “Per”, and then asks me to chip in 3 dollars for the cause, and that if I do, I will have a chance to meet Barack personally… all expenses covered.

It has a sort of delightful country fair tombola ring to it, but I also must confess it makes me a bit uneasy.

Is this really an adequate behavior for the president and the first lady of the most powerful country in the world, and upon which so much of my and my family future depends on?

First, I understand that Michelle Obama might have nothing to do with this, and also that I might be just a bit too old fashioned to understand the marketing of our times… but still, I can´t help having some serious reservations about it all.

Though policymakers cannot decree the balance of the economy, they can surely guarantee its imbalance.

Sir, how economically efficiently the banks allocate credit is going to a very high degree determine the vitality and sturdiness of the real economy.

And current bank regulations, with capital requirements based on perceived risk, by allowing banks to earn much much higher risk-adjusted returns of equity when lending to “The Infallible”, like sovereigns, housing and the AAAristocracy; than when lending to “The Risky”, like the medium and small businesses, the entrepreneurs and start-ups, guarantees an inefficient allocation of bank credit.

Robin Harding, in “Americas economic growth is built on sand” September 11, writes that “Policy makers cannot prescribe the balance of the economy”. That is correct, but policy makers, by allowing for these dumb regulations, with its phony risk aversion, are indeed decreeing the imbalance of the economy. Obviously, Washington is not alone doing that, all Europe is too.

FT, how can you learn if you do not want to listen?

Sir, in your editorial “US spring fails to spread to Europe” May 4, if it could really be called a “spring”, you write “fixing the banks to help the recovery is the lesson Britain and the eurozone must learn from the US.”

The real difference between the US banks and your banks is that the former never fully implemented Basel II and are therefore much less exposed to the distortions the capital requirements for banks based on perceived risks already cleared for elsewhere cause.

But since that is precisely what I have written you more than a thousand lettersabout, but that you have preferred to ignore, I must then ask… how are you suppose to learn if you are not even willing to listen?

Frankly... who has such silencing powers in the Financial Times?

Get the misguided and distortion creating regulatory risk-taking austerity out of our banks, fast!

Sir, Wolfgang Münchau writes against “blindly rushing into semi-automated austerity” and about the “perma-austerity” that he sees invading the US and Europe, “US joins Europe´s misguided pursuit of austerity” January 7. 

And again I must comment that the most dangerous austerity, in the US and in Europe, has nothing to do with fiscal or central bank accounts, and all to do with the foolish risk-taking austerity that, by means of capital requirements based on perceived risk, has been imposed on our banks. 

That austerity signifies that those in the real economy who are the most vulnerable and dependent on access to bank credit on favorable terms, “The Risky”, are currently the ones most discriminated against by bank regulators who like overly scared nannies, insist in favoring “The Infallible”, those who least need favoring. 

Before you get the regulatory distortions out of the way, the discussions, for instance of fiscal multipliers, is just a huge waste of time.

No more QEs and fiscal stimulus. Bet on a bank stimulus for the “risky”, in America and in Europe

Sir, Wolfgang Münchau writes on “Why QE would be the right policy for Europe, too” September 17. Since I do not feel Bernanke’s QE is correct either, I cannot agree with this. 

It is high time to forget about any QEs and or fiscal stimulus, decided on an implemented by bureaucrats at a long distance from the real markets, and which have only consumed scarce monetary and fiscal space, with very little sustainable to show for it. 

Instead we need the banks to direct those stimulus flows to where these are most needed and could be the most productive. And this, governments can do, without asking anyone’s permission, or worry about any unconstitutionality. All it takes is that they instruct the bank regulators to drastically reduce the capital requirements for banks when lending to what is perceived as risky small businesses and entrepreneurs. 

Would this be reckless? Not at all, or at least much less than when allowing the banks to hold very little when lending to what is perceived as not-risky, precisely the type of exposures that have always been behind any major bank crisis.

Any country declines if it starts taxing risk-taking

Sir, congressman Paul Ryan writes many truths in “Republicans must return to free-market principles” July 20, the truest in my opinion being that of “the defeatism of those seeking to manage the west’s decline. 

But if the congressman would just pick up his phone and call a banker in his constituency, to ask him how much capital the bank needed to hold in order to lend to an unrated a more fuller understanding about the urgency of returning to free-market principles. 

With immense hubris bank regulators, thinking themselves to be the risk-managers of the world, started to allot risk-weights which determines how much capital a bank needs for any specific asset. And, that translates into extraordinary interest rate subsidies to what is officially perceived as not-risky and extraordinary interest rate taxes on what is officially perceived as risky. 

What drives a country forward is its willingness to take risk. If bank regulators skew the access to bank credit in favor of the not-risky, those already favored by risk-adverse bankers, then the country will stall, decline, and finally fall drowning in obese bank exposures to what is officially deemed as absolutely not risky.

The confidence in the dollar and USA’s defense capabilities are as connected as they can be

Sir, when Sebastian Mallaby in “American power requires economic sacrifice”, July 7 discusses USA’s spending on defense he fails to mention one important related question namely… how much of the world’s clearly extreme confidence in the US dollar depends on the US conserving at least the appearance of omnipotence? My answer would be “much much more than what you think… this is really terrain where realpolitik reigns”. 

In this respect any defense savings that comes, for instance, from not fighting useless wars will be acceptable, but any saving that leads to a perception of a lessened military readiness of USA would become extremely expensive, as a result of the dollar being worth less, or the markets demanding higher interest rates to hold US public debt.

We need to bring the credit ratings down to earth

Sir, John Authers´ “Easter parade of worries over Uncle Sam´s credit”, April 24, refers to the rating agencies wielding “real power”, but then describes that power only in terms of “affecting the rates at which companies or countries can borrow”; without making any reference to what has yielded the rating agencies the excessive power they posses, namely that the ratings also play a role when defining how much capital a banks needs to have.

It is that the credit ratings are given a double consideration, which has elevated their importance to the skies and brought us the current crisis. Let´s go back to Basel I days, or better yet Basel 0, set one single capital requirement for all bank lending; and then we have brought down the opinions of the rating agencies to something more in harmony with what they really are, a bunch of fallible humans who, had they been laboratories, would have long ago been sued out of the waters for their harmful mistaken opinions.

Though the outlook is for hurricanes you have not yet seen the roofs flying, just yet.

Sir Martin Wolf, as an economist, stubbornly refuses to even consider those financial regulations, or may I dare to say global capital controls, that directed the worlds capital flows so excessively towards creating excessive debts in areas that were officially perceived as not risky, like the US, UK, Greece and the triple-A rated securities in this world. “Faltering in a stormy sea of debt” April 20. Since what the regulators are currently doing is trying to correct for that mistake, instead of correcting the mistake, we should expect a serious case of regulatory overmedication to also strengthen the storms that await us.

Let me take the opportunity to comment on Standard & Poor’s recent grim outlook for the US debt. Given that the US can always by printing repay its debt in nominal terms that must mean that S&P is, I believe for the first time, considering the possibility of collecting on loans in real terms.

Mexico needs to speak out against China´s renminbi manipulation

Sir I find myself 100 percent in agreement with Martin Wolfs “Evaluating the renminbi manipulation” April 7, since manipulation is what it clearly is. But that said perhaps more than the US talking and taking actions, others like Mexico, being the most affected, as it is their exports that are being displaced, should also do their share of loud screaming and hollering.