In July 1988 the Basel Accord (
Basel I) approved that banks had to hold 8 percent in capital (equity) when lending to the private sector but that banks were allowed to lend to OECD’s central governments against no capital (equity) at all.
The introduction of such an amazing pro-government bias, I would even call it outright communism, distorted all common sense out of the allocation of bank credit to the real economy.
And with
Basel II, in June 2004, the Basel Committee made it even worse by allying themselves with the private AAArisktocracy, which of course left even more out in the cold, those we most need to have fair access to bank credit, our SMEs and entrepreneurs.
And now with
Basel III, the Basel Committee, with the blessing of the Financial Stability Board, and counting with the collegial silence of the IMF, is increasing regulatory complexity tenfold, and digging us even deeper into the hole.
PS. And, amazingly, Basel I happened while the attention was diverted discussing the supposed pro-private sector bias of the "Neo-Liberal"
Washington Consensus.
PS. And even more amazingly... in its many hundred of pages... the Dodd-Frank Act does not even mention the Basel Accord of which US is a signatory or the Basel Committee
PS. Paul Mason just wrote "
PostCapitalism". Since pure capitalism clearly ended with the Basel Accord, he must be referring to PostStateCapitalism.