December 27, 2008

The financial system needs to be more than what FT currently wants it to be

Sir in “The year the god of finance failed” December 27 you write “First and most important, finance is the heart of the market economy. It pumps money from those who have it, but do not need it, to those who need it but do not have it.”

Unfortunately, as a consequence of the world not having debated the purpose of the financial system for now some decades; and the financial regulators having just concentrated on lowering the risks of individual bank failures, your prescription seems about right. To me though the role of a financial system should be to move the financial resources to the most productive areas for the society at large, and that is an entirely different proposition.