Again the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision evidences it is a clueless producer of systemic risks.
I refer to a speech by William Coen the Secretary General of the Basel Committee, given in Sydney on 5 April 2016 and titled “The global policy reform agenda: completing the job” Coen said:
“A bridge is an apt metaphor for the Basel framework. Bridges must be safe and sound. A safe and sound banking system is exactly what the Basel framework aims to support. Bridges facilitate movement, commerce and trade. The financial system plays a crucial role in directing investment and funds between individuals and businesses…
For the past 25 years, the foundation of the international approach to the prudential regulation of banks has been a risk-based capital ratio.
The level of capital is a difficult question. There are many views on what the "right amount" should be”
So it is clear that the Basel Committee still does not understand the distortion they cause. Its risk-based capital ratios, which allows banks to leverage equity differently with different assets depending on their ex ante perceived risk, amounts to building some very wide bridges where banks and “the safe” can interact a lot with ease, and then some very narrow bridges that make the relations between banks and “the risky” much harder than they already were.
Coen confesses: “We have spent several years developing a framework to make sure that banks' capital and liquidity buffers are strong enough to keep the system safe and sound.” And that is precisely the problem; they only cared about the condition of the banks and not one iota about the fundamental social purpose of banks, which is allocating credit efficiently to the real economy.
And Coen also quoted the Dutch central bank with: "today's undesirable behavior in financial institutions is at the root of tomorrow's solvency and liquidity problems".
That is correct but I would also add: Today’s undesirable regulatory failure is and will be at the root of tomorrows problems with the real economy… and in the long run no bank system cam be safe and sound, if the underlying real economy is not safe and sound.
And by the way, the root of 2007-08’s solvency and liquidity problems, laid in those authorized leverages of over 60 to 1 for AAA rated securities and sovereigns like Greece.
What are we to do with this bunch of not accountable to any technocrats that have never walked on Main Street, and are incapable of understanding that risk-taking is the oxygen of all development?
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are for.” John Augustus Shedd, 1850-1926
Please, give our banks one sole equal capital requirement for all assets, to protect banks not against expected credit risks already cleared for, but against unforeseen risks, such as the Basel Committee falling into the hands of clueless regulators.
Let us never forget that the most dangerous systemic risks can easily be introduced by the regulators.
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