Basel I, II, and III are all examples of pure unabridged regulatory statism

In July 1988 the G10 approved the Basel Accord. For its risk weighted bank capital requirements it assigned the following risk weights:

0% to claims on central governments and central banks denominated in national currency and funded in that currency. 

100% to claims on the private sector.

That means banks can leverage much more whatever net margin a sovereign borrower offers than what it can leverage loans like to entrepreneurs. That means banks will find it easier to earn high risk adjusted returns on their equity lending to the sovereign than for instance when lending to entrepreneurs. That means it will lend too much at too low rates to the sovereign and too little at too high rates to entrepreneurs.

In other words Basel I introduced pure and unabridged statism into our bank regulations. 

Basel II of June 2004 in its Standardized Risk Weight, for the same credit ratings, also set lower risk weights for claims on sovereigns than for claims on corporates.

In a letter published by FT November 2004 I asked: “How many Basel propositions will it take before they start realizing the damage they are doing by favoring so much bank lending to the public sector. In some developing countries, access to credit for the private sector is all but gone, and the banks are up to the hilt in public credits.”

And the European Commission, I do not know when, to top it up, assigned a Sovereign Debt Privilege of a 0% risk weight to all Eurozone sovereigns, even when these de facto do not take on debt in a national printable currency.

And, to top it up, the ECB launched its Quantitative Easing programs, QEs, purchasing European sovereign debts.

At the end of the day, the difference between the interest rates on sovereign debt that would exist in the absence of regulatory subsidies and central bank purchases, and the current ultra low or even negative rates, is just a non-transparent tax, paid by those who save. Financial communism

And all this began one year before the fall of the Berlin Wall

J’Accuse[d] the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision (BCBS) a thousands times, but I am no Émile Zola and there’s no L’Aurore

J’Accuse the Basel Committee of setting up our bank systems to especially large crises, caused by especially large exposures to something perceived as especially safe, which later turns into being especially risky, while held against especially little capital.

My letter to the Financial Stability Board

J’Accuse the Basel Committee for distorting the allocation of bank credit to the real economy by favoring the sovereign and the safer present, AAA rated and residential mortgages, while discriminating against the riskier future, SMEs and entrepreneurs.

My letter to the International Monetary Fund

A question to the Fed: When in 1988 bank regulators assigned America’s public debt a 0.00% risk weight, its debt was about $2.6 trillion, now it is around $22 trillion and still has a 0.00% risk weight. When do you think it should increase to 0.01%?

Clearing for perceived risk vs. discriminating based on perceived risk.

If making good down payments house buyers normally had more and cheaper access to bank credit than an entrepreneurs wanting loan for risky ventures.

But when regulators, with their risk weighted bank capital requirements decreed that banks needed to hold less capital against residential mortgages than against unsecured loans to entrepreneurs; which meant that banks could leverage much more their equity with residential mortgages than with unsecured loans to entrepreneurs; which meant that with the same risk adjusted interest than before banks could earn higher risk adjusted returns on equity with residential mortgages than with unsecured loans to entrepreneurs, the regulators de facto discriminated the access to bank credit in favor of house buyers and against entrepreneurs.

So there’s a world of difference between banks clearing for perceived credit risk and the regulators discriminating the access to bank credit based on perceived credit risk.

With their discrimination regulators decreed inequality

With their 0% risk weighted sovereign and 100% risk weighted citizens regulators decreed that the sovereign has more rights to more and cheaper access to bank credit than citizens.

And, at the end of the day it's all for nothing. That discrimination only sets up our banks to especially large bank crises, caused by especially large exposures to something ex ante perceived, decreed or concocted as especially safe, and which ex post turns into being especially risky, while being held against especially little capital.

A letter to the Financial Stability Board

A letter to the IMF titled: "The risk weights are to access to credit, what tariffs are to trade, only more pernicious."

PS. And do the risk weighted bank capital requirements make the risky riskier?

“I am not sure about 'subsidised' sovereign. Since sovereign is ultimate safety net for entire financial system… the term is I'll suited.”

My answer:

Yes a sovereign, if we ignore inflation and the possibility of being repaid in worthless money, the sovereign represents no risk if it takes on debt denominated in a currency it can print. Which by the way is not the case with the sovereigns in the Eurozone.

But let us assume that in the open market the required risk/cost/inflation adjusted net return for a sovereign in .5% and for the risky SMEs 3%

Then if banks, as it used to be for almost 600 years, had to hold one single capital against the risks of its whole portfolio, and the authorities, or in their absence the markets, allowed banks to leverage 12 times then the risk/cost/inflation adjusted required expected return on equity would be 6% for sovereigns and 36% for SMEs.

BUT, since banks are now allowed to leverage immensely more with safe sovereigns, let us say 40 times and only 12 times with SMEs, the now distorted risk/cost/inflation adjusted expected ROEs are 20% for sovereigns and still 36% for SMEs. So now banks can offer to lower the interest rates to sovereigns and still obtain the risk/cost/inflation adjusted required expected return on equity of 6% for sovereigns, ergo the subsidized sovereign.

OR, since banks could now earn a risk/cost/inflation adjusted expected ROEs of 20% on sovereign debt, then in terms of comparable risk adjustments it would have to earn more than 36% on SMEs, or not lend to them at all, ergo that subsidy to the sovereign, is paid by others who find their access to bank credit made more difficult and expensive as a consequence of the risk weighted bank capital requirements. 

PS. Is there no sovereign risk present when some current rates are negative and central banks work like crazy to produce 2% inflation? 

PS. If you go back in time and start taking about risk-free sovereigns to bankers who sometimes had their head chopped off or were been burned when trying to collect from the sovereigns, they would think you were crazy.