October 24, 2009

We must urgently, temporarily, lower the capital requirements for BB+ and below.

Sir John Dizard’s “The real reasons why banks are remaining reticent on lending” October 24 marks, from what I have seen and not withstanding my hundred of letters on the subject, the first time that anyone in the Financial Times gets involved with the real fundamental flaw of our current bank regulations, namely how it discriminates among different risk categories.

Welcome FT, better late than never!

Dizzard writes “The banks still want to lend but the desired business is now triple B or better [which in essence requires a capital of four percent]… Unfortunately, even using 2007 standards and data, perhaps half of their book was double B and below [which requires 8 percent in capital]”

And that is why, knowing for sure that those most able to create jobs and provide for fiscally sustainable growth are the entrepreneurs who usually live in the BB+ and below area, I have been on my knees begging for the temporarily lowering of the capital requirements on these loans to only 4 percent; while the banks are busy rebuilding their capitals in order to take care of all the perceived low-risks that turned into real high risks.

We would not want to crowd out our possibly savors in order to provide room in the lifeboat for those who got us in the mess, would we?