The way governments are cooking it perhaps we should all run to Panama, for our children and grandchildren’s sake.

Look at what government’s are doing.

The regulators set risk weights for public debt at zero percent, which means that the banks need to hold the least capital when lending to those who sort of appoint them, talk about a conflict of interest… talk about lobbying.

The central banks, with their QEs, buy mostly sovereign debt.

And the central banks with their negative interest rates benefit mostly governments, since who in his sane mind would lend to his neighbor at a negative rate?

So really, what do they need our taxes for?

But those who will surely have to pay for all this madness, will be our children and grandchildren, and so perhaps we, responsible fathers and grandfathers, should all be running to Panama and similar places to see what we can safeguard for them.

Patrick McHenry, next time ask Fed’s Janet Yellen about the legality of risk weighted capital requirements for banks

Patrick McHenry (R-North Carolina) asked Fed chair Janet Yellen about the Fed's legal authority to  implement negative rates… And seemingly it is a bit unclear. 

But he should also have asked:

Is it really legal for the Fed to support bank regulations that require banks to hold more capital against loans to The Risky than against loans to The Safe?

I ask since that allows banks to leverage more their equity and the support we gve them when lending to The Safe than when lending to The Risky.

And that allows banks to earn higher expected risk adjusted returns on equity when lending to The Safe than when lending to The Risky 

And therefore that favors the access to bank credit of those perceived as safe, and thereby discriminates against the fair access to bank credit of those perceived as risky.

Are not The Risky already discriminated enough by the sole fact they are perceived as risky and therefore receive less and more expensive credit?

Does not the real economy suffer when the allocation of bank credit is distorted this way?

Has this not introduce a regulatory risk aversion in The Home of the Brave?

And how does this make banks more stable? Are not the big bank crises always detonated by something perceived as very safe that later turn out very risky?

How do you explain to grownups the benefits of compound interests in times of zero or negative interest rates?

The Washington Post carried a story on June 21 titled “Where broke millennials go to learn aboutmoney – Financial planning for grownups.

In it its author Jonelle Marte, writes about a wine-tasting meeting organized by the Society of Grownups, in which “Stephanie Labelle was busy jotting notes as financial planner Jena Palisoul explained compound interest”.

And I was left wondering about how you go about and explain the benefits of compound interests, in times of zero or even negative interest rates.

Also, if I had been there to advise these young adults on the best way to guarantee their future I would, without a shadow of a doubt, told them to get rid of current bank regulators with their senseless risk-aversion. 

The currentcredit-risk-weighted capital requirements, make banks invest in assets much more compatible with the investment needs of a retiree with very few years of life expectancies, than with those of young grownups… those who needs banks to finance “risky” SMEs and entrepreneurs, in order to have the economy going and generating jobs.

Actually I would suggest the Society of Grownups writing the regulators a kind letter reminding them that major bank crisis are never ever caused by excessive exposures to what is perceived as risky, but always from too large exposures to what has been erroneously perceived as very safe.

What Europe most needs, Europe does not get, courtesy of their bank regulators.

Where would that liquidity injected by the ECB’s QE printing machine best be put to use in Europe? Since there is a limit to how much you can inflate demand by inflating the value of existing assets, without any doubt, what Europe most needs now is for that liquidity to flow by means of bank credits to SMEs entrepreneurs and start-ups, those who stand the best chance of producing something new to advance the European economies. 

But no, that is not going to happen, not as long as Europe’s bank regulators, Mario Draghi, Stefan Ingves and Mark Carney included, have anything to say about it. 

Those regulators dangerously blocked the fair access to bank credit to anyone perceived as risky from a credit point of view, because they do not dare European banks take the risk of lending to these. That they have done by means of portfolio invariant credit-risk weighted equity requirements for banks. 

Those equity requirements work like hallucinogens on banks, intensifying their perception of credit risk, making what’s perceived as safe look much safer yet, and what is perceived as risky so much riskier.

It’s insane. It demonstrates the Basel Committee, Financial Stability Board, ECB, Mario Draghi and so many more are way over their heads in Europe.

Look at ECB, European banks, pension funds, widows and orphans, all scrambling in order to lay their hands on the ever smaller inventory of safe assets, those which by means of negative interests, are now so "absolutely safe" they already guarantee you a minimum haircut.