I saw something. I said something. No one listened. C'est la vie?

October 1998, Op-Ed Venezuela: History is full of examples of where the State, by meddling to avoid damages, caused infinite larger damages”

November 1999, Op-Ed Venezuela: “The possible Big Bang that scares me the most, is the one that could happen the day those genius bank regulators in Basel, playing Gods, manage to introduce a systemic error in the financial system, which will cause its collapse”

January 2003 in a letter published by the Financial Times: "Everyone knows that, sooner or later, the ratings issued by the credit agencies are just a new breed of systemic error to be propagated at modern speeds. Friends, please consider that the world is tough enough as it is."

March 2003, in a formal discussion as and Executive Director (ED) at the Executive Board of the World Bank: The sole chance the world has of avoiding the risk that Bank Regulators in Basel, accounting standard boards, and credit-rating agencies will introduce serious and fatal systemic risks into the world, is by having an entity like the World Bank stand up to them—instead of rather fatalistically accepting their dictates and duly harmonizing with the IMF.

April 2003, in a formal written statement delivered as an ED of the World Bank: “Ages ago, when information was less available and moved at a slower pace, the market consisted of a myriad of individual agents acting on limited information basis. Nowadays, when information is just too voluminous and fast to handle, market or authorities have decided to delegate the evaluation of it into the hands of much fewer players such as the credit rating agencies. This will, almost by definition, introduce systemic risks in the market and we are already able to discern some of the victims, although they are just the tip of an iceberg. 

May 2003 In a workshop for bank regulators at the World Bank I simply cannot understand how a world that preaches the value of the invisible hand of millions of market agents can then go out and delegate so much regulatory power to a limited number of human and very fallible credit-rating agencies. This sure must be setting us up for the mother of all systemic errors.

May 2003, Op-Ed Venezuela: “Perhaps we need to include a label that states: Warning excessive banking regulations from the Basel Committee can be very dangerous for the development of your country”

June 2004 “Central bank governors and the heads of bank supervisory authorities in the Group of Ten (G10) countries met today and endorsed Basel II” the publication of the International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standards: a Revised Framework, the new capital adequacy framework commonly known as Basel II… It’s lunacy