Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Capital requirements for banks, which are higher when banks lend to those perceived as “risky” than when they lend to those perceived as “not risky”, cause the following:
A regulatory tax on the access to bank credit imposed on the “risky”, most often the not-haves, most often the periphery.
A regulatory subsidy paid to the “not-risky”, most often the haves, most often the center, on their access to bank credit.
And that produces a huge distortion of our financial markets, and our small businesses and entrepreneurs, those we need to find our young the next generation of jobs, find it harder and more expensive than usual to access bank credit.
And, it’s all for nothing, since all major bank crisis only occur from excessive and truly obese exposures to what was erroneously perceived as absolutely not-risky.
As I see it, those capital requirements can amount to, an unwitting, and only in terms of its destructive powers, 9/11 styled, terrorist act against our economies.
What on earth is the “land of the brave” doing allowing its regulators to discriminate against the “risky”?
Does the US congress have any idea about the tax and subsidies paid by these non-elected regulators?