The Basel Committee, Financial Stability Board and other frightened risk adverse bank nannies, they mandated stagnation.

When you allow banks to hold less capital when financing what’s perceived as safe than when financing the risky; banks earn higher expected risk adjusted returns on equity when financing the safe than when financing the risky; and so you are de facto instructing the banks to stop financing the riskier future and keep to refinancing the safer past… something which guarantees stagnation… a failure to develop, progress or advance… something which guarantees lack of employment for the young and retirement hardships for the old. 

I would prefer not to distort the allocation of bank credit but, if I had to, then I would try to ascertain that bank credit goes to where it could do the society the most good; in which case I would consider basing these on job creation ratings and environmental sustainability ratings, and not on some useless credit ratings already cleared for by banks with the size of their exposures and interest rates.

PS. If you want more explanations on the statist and idiotic bank regulations that are taking our Western society down, here is a brief aide memoire.

PS. If you want to know whether I have any idea of what I am talking about, here is a short summary of my early opinions on this issue since 1997.

Basel Committee’s mindboggling naiveté: Banks, thou shall not misbehave and fudge to lower your capital requirements

In the “Statement on capital arbitrage transactions” Basel Committee newsletter No 18 of June 2016 we read:

“Transactions that are designed to offset regulatory adjustments employ a variety of strategies. For example, these may include: (1) the issuance of senior or subordinated securities with or without contingent write off mechanisms; (2) sales contracts that transfer insufficient risk to be deemed sales for accounting purposes; (3) fully-collateralised derivative contracts; and (4) guarantees or insurance policies. These types of transactions… can have the effect of overestimating eligible capital or reducing capital requirements, without commensurately reducing the risk in the financial system, thus undermining the calibration of minimum regulatory capital requirements.

Banks should therefore not engage in transactions that have the aim of offsetting regulatory adjustments.”

What a mindboggling naiveté! While regulators allow banks to hold less capital against assets perceived, decreed or concocted as safe, and the risk-adjusted return on equity is how banks compete for capital (and bonuses), how can they think banks will not do their utmost to lower the required equity?

PS. Children, listen to your Basel nannie, though there is ice-cream and chocolate cake in the fridge, she still expects you to eat the spinach and the broccoli.

PS. You want your children not to arbitrage and eat of everything... blend it all together.

PS.You want your banks not to arbitrage... set one capital requirements for all assets.

Evidence that demonstrates, without any reasonable doubt, we have landed us some very feeble-minded bank regulators

What are the chances banks build up huge exposures to those rated prime, AAA to AA, and which could be dangerous to the bank system, if these, ex post, turn out to have been worthy of a much lower rating? Big!

What are the chances banks build up dangerously large exposures to those rated “highly speculative “ and worse below BB-? None! 

And yet the regulators, for the purposes of determining the capital requirements for banks, in Basel II, assigned to the AAA to AA rated, a risk weight of 20%, and to the below BB- rated, a risk weight of 150%.

And to top it up, the risk weights are portfolio invariant.

Do we really need more evidence that the Basel Committee regulators and those affiliated to it are cuckoo?

They behave like nannies telling the children “Stay away from the ugly and foul smelling, and embrace the nice gents bringing you candy”, and so dangerously distort the allocation of bank credit to the real economy.

Voltaire to the Basel Committee: “May God defend me from my friends [AAA rated]: I can defend myself from my enemies [BB- rated]”

Here is a brief memo that further explains their idiocy.

Europe, America, you might use the average risk aversion of nannies, but, never ever, as the Basel Committee does, use a sum of these.

Let us suppose a perfect credit rating. 

And that perfect credit rating is then considered by the banks and the market in general, and cleared for by interest rates, the size of the exposure and other terms.

But when bank regulators (Basel Committee) ordered that perfectly perceived credit risk, to also be cleared for in the capital of banks, then they completely messed it up.

Because a perfectly perceived risk, when it is excessively considered, causes an imperfect reaction to it. 

Let me explain it in the following way: 

Figure out the average risk aversion of nannies when letting your kids out to play… that might not be the best risk aversion to use, it might be too high, but anyhow it is acceptable. 

But, never ever add one nanny’s risk aversion to that of other nannies, because then your kid will never ever be allowed to go out and play… 

And if your kids only stay “safe” at home, they will eat too many cookies and turn obese… like some of their nannies.

And that’s what we have now, banks staying home, playing it safe and turning obese by lending to “infallible sovereigns”, house financing and member of the AAAristocracy or the AAArisktocracy; while not going out to play, in order to develop muscles, for instance by lending to small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Our banks no longer finance the "risky" future they just refinance the "safer" past.

You can use their average risk aversion,
 but, for the sake of our kids (and our banks) please, never ever the sum of it

PS. Here is a current summary of why I know the risk weighted capital requirements for banks, is utter and dangerous nonsense.

The Western world is being brought to its knees by mad bank regulators

The Western world is the result of risk-taking in all shapes and forms… “God make us daring!” ends one of the psalms sung in its churches… and we honor the successful and feel for the unsuccessful. 

But regulators, concerned only with bank failures, decided on capital requirements for banks based on perceived risk. And with these they gave the banks additional incentives to embrace lending to those perceived as “not-risky”, like the triple-A rated and “infallible” sovereigns, and to further avoid the “risky”, like the small business and entrepreneurs. And with this they stuck a dagger in the very soul of the Western world. 

And the dagger proved also to be more than useless for its initial purpose. Since it is precisely when banks embrace too much something that is perceived as absolutely not risky, that they fail en masse, the regulators doomed the world to this the mother of all systemic bank crises. 

The survival of the Western world now needs to begin by rescuing the possibilities of its risky risk-takers to take the risks we depend upon as a society, and that requires to allow the “risky” to compete for bank credit without regulators discriminating against them. 

And that begins by firing the nannies in the Basel Committee and in the Financial Stability Board, and renaming the latter immediately the Financial Functionability Board so that the regulators do not forget what they are there for.

Our crazy bank regulations explained in red and blue

Nannies care for risks perceived, regulators should care for the risks not perceived. So you tell me, the Basel Committee, the FSA and the FSB, what are they?