Sunday, February 17, 2013

Do we need a witness protection program for European bank regulators?

Would Europe be in such troubles had their banks not purchased too many Potemkin rated securities, or lent too much to sovereigns like Greece, Spanish real estate or Irish banks? No way! 

Would the banks have done all that if they had been required by their regulators to hold as much capital for it than when lending to an ordinary unrated European citizen? No way! 

And so there can be no discussion of that those primarily responsible for all current hardship in Europe are the bank regulators who allowed it all. 

But they have all circled their wagons so that no one can get close to them asking for an explanation, and anyone of them willing to offer a mea culpa would clearly be labeled a traitor by his colleagues.

And if for instance all the European youth got hold of how these regulators, by discriminating against the risky and thereby favoring what is safe, are blocking their future, they better hide. 

And so we might need to offer a witness protection program to some regulators, in order to break this dark spell. Because break it we must. Otherwise Europe is toast. 

Would Mario Draghi be a taker?