The regulators, the banks and the sharks and their baits

The world’s bank regulators in the Basel Committee, assumed with unbelievable hubris the role of risk managers of the world; ignoring that perceived risks are not dangerous to the system, only those not-perceived are, authorized the banks to leverage their capital 60 times or more, when investing in or lending to anything related to a triple-A rating.

As should have been expected, the banks, carrying the minuscule life-vests ordained, in pursuit of easy profits, huge bonuses and too big to fail growth rates, entered massively the triple-A rated waters … where the sharks has baited them some triple-A rated securities collateralized with lousily awarded subprime mortgages paying juicy interests… and a true bloodbath ensued.

The saddest part of the story though, is that our banks are still regulated by the same regulators using precisely the same tools applied the same way… just more of it.