Pope Francis, please go and explain “The Parable of Talents” to the members of the Basel Committee
At the European Parliament, Pope Francis spoke of a need to reinvigorate Europe, describing the continent as a "grandmother, no longer fertile and vibrant" and saying it risked "slowly losing its own soul".
"The great ideas which once inspired Europe seem to have lost their attraction, only to be replaced by the bureaucratic technicalities of its institutions," he said.
Indeed, but what else can you expect when bank regulators bureaucrats instruct banks not to lend to what seems "risky", that which most often includes the new and the future. And that they do by allowing banks to leverage immensely their equity, as long as they keep to what’s seems absolutely safe, that which most often includes the old and the history.
Had these regulations been in place earlier, Europe would not have become “a beacon of civilization” as Pope Francis believes it still is. Now it is with sadness we see regulators turning out its lights.
Next time Pope Francis would do better going to the Basel in order to explain The Parable of Talents to the members of the Basel Committee, those who have now castrated the European banks.
Lights are being turned out in Europe
PS. And Pope Francis could also remind regulators of Pope John Paul II saying:
Our hearts ring out with the words of Jesus when one day, after speaking to the crowds from Simon's boat, he invited the Apostle to "put out into the deep" for a catch: "Duc in altum" (Lk 5:4). Peter and his first companions trusted Christ's words, and cast the nets. "When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish" (Lk 5:6).
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