Showing posts with label Crash 2007. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crash 2007. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Fact 1a: Without the blessing of the credit rating agencies the lousily awarded mortgages to subprime lenders would never have been able to go global and turn into a tsunami.
Fact 1b: It was the short-sighted bank regulators who appointed the credit rating agencies as their imperial credit risks overseers even though they must have known this entailed severe systemic risk creation.
Fact 2a: If the banks have kept the mortgages on their books they would have been much more observant about what was going on and never ever would so many lousy mortgages to subprime lenders been awarded.
Fact 2b: It was the short-sighted bank regulators who through their minimum capital requirements and that were exclusively based on risk perceptions induced the banks to place their assets elsewhere.
Fact 3: As always small fish like mortgage brokers will carry the full blame while the real intellectual perpetuators will go free.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
A letter in Washington Post: Factors in the Financial Storm
Factors in the Financial Storm
David Ignatius, in his Sept. 2 op-ed, "The Real Causes of the Financial Storm" failed to mention the two lead actors in the financial mess we find ourselves in: the credit rating agencies, whose AAA ratings turned what should have remained a local problem involving some subprime lenders into a global financial storm; and, of course, the bank regulators who against all wisdom enabled the credit rating agencies to foist what they consider to be only their First Amendment-enabled opinions upon the markets.
In May 2003, as one of the 24 executive directors of the World Bank, and probably only because of that, I was invited to make some comments during a workshop arranged by the World Bank for bank regulators on assessing, managing and supervising financial risk. Along with offering some suggestions, I told the regulators, "I simply cannot understand how a world that preaches the value of the invisible hand of millions of market agents can then go out and delegate so much regulatory power to a limited number of human and very fallible credit rating agencies. This sure must be setting us up for the mother of all systemic errors."
I never got invited to comment again.
Here other of my letters in the Washington Post on this issue:
June 20, 2008: An Aspect of the Bubble
December 27, 2009: Another 'worst': Faulty bank regulation
June 20, 2008: An Aspect of the Bubble
December 27, 2009: Another 'worst': Faulty bank regulation
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