Friday, July 12, 2013

FT, the Financial Times of London, is not interested in possibly the greatest financial horror story ever.

Banks are allowed by their regulators to hold much less capital (equity) against assets which are ex ante perceived as absolutely safe, like loans to some sovereigns and to the AAAristocracy, than against assets perceived as “risky”, like loans to small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs.

That translates directly into banks being able to earn a much expected higher risk-adjusted return on its equity when lending to “The Infallible” than when lending to “The Risky”.

And that translates directly into the danger that some of The Infallible might get too much bank credit and as a result run into problems which, if and when this occurs, will catch banks standing there naked, with precious little capital to cover them up with, signifying a huge systemic bank crisis.

And that also translates directly into The Risky getting much less access to bank credit and having to pay much higher margins than what would have been the case in the absence of these regulations, signifying, among other, less job opportunities for our youth.

That very dangerous risk-aversion, or call it exaggerated embracement of safety, which is destabilizing our banks, and threatening the future of economies developed based on risk-taking, could be the greatest financial horror story ever.

Strangely enough, the journalists in the Financial Times of London, and to whom collectively I have written more than a thousand letterson the subject, seem not to be much interested.

I wonder why?

In other words, helped along by FT and other, the Baby Boomers’ après nous le deluge regulatory mentality, has the world consuming its past without creating its future