A pre-reading it comment on Mercatus Center’s Tyler Cowen’s “The Complacent Class”

Note: I have not read Tyler Cowen’s “The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream” yet, as it is still not available. If it contains something that would contradict the following comment that would be great welcomed news. 

In Foreign Affairs we can read: “Tyler Cowen’s timely and well-written book points to a central feature of contemporary American life: since the 1980s, U.S. society has become less dynamic and more risk averse. The quest for safety and predictability has made the country both more and less comfortable than before. Although many (perhaps even most) Americans enjoy the stability and security that the status quo provides, increasing numbers feel thwarted by the lack of opportunity and slow economic growth that characterize their increasingly static society.” 

And I ask, how could that not be when bank regulators introduced risk weighted capital requirements for banks? That primarily happened in 1988 with Basel I and in 2004 with Basel II. 

And the risk weights imposed were such as: Sovereign 0%, AAA-risktocracy 20%, residential houses 35%, We the People, like unrated SMEs and entrepreneurs 100%, and below BB-rated 150%.

That clearly gives banks all the incentives (higher allowed leverages) to finance and refinance much more what is ex ante perceived, decreed or concocted as safe, most often what derives from something that already is known and exists; and to stop financing the unknown riskier future. In other words those regulations imposed risk aversion on the Home of the Brave. 

That, in the short term, not only guarantees a static society, but worse, medium and long term, it causes a falling society. 

It is perfectly understandable that those with Statist inclinations, and who in the 0% risk weight for the sovereign must see their wet dreams come true, don’t say a word about the distortions in the allocation of bank credit those regulations cause… and this even though this regulation actually decrees that inequality they so much tell us they abhor. 

But, that professors from a Mercatus Center at George Mason University that presents itself as “the world’s premier university source for market-oriented ideas”, keeps hush about this all, really makes me sad. 

But, that professors from a Mercatus Center at George Mason University that presents itself as “the world’s premier university source for market-oriented ideas”, keeps hush about this all, really blows my mind. What keeps them from seeing the problem? A peculiar confirmation bias?

PS. In 2011 I already commented about this to Tyler Cowen, when sending him by email what I wrote to Martin Wolf with respect to his "The Great Stagnation"

PS. Here is another occasion in which the Mercatus Center, in my opinion, failed to speak up.

PS. And there is enough evidence on the web about how I have commented on this issue, time after time, on blogs run by Professors of the Mercatus Center.