June 21, 2013

By George, it looks like Ms. Tett finally got it!

Sir, Gillian Tett in “Fasten your seat belts tightly for a turbulent QE exit”, June 21, makes a reference to the Fed piloting the plane “in a thick financial fog, with incomplete data dials and a volatile market compass”.

I have not read anything of that sort previously from Ms. Tett but, if she is referring to the fact that given the banks are required to hold so much more capital when lending to ordinary mortal “risky” citizens than when lending to the “infallible sovereign”, and that this translates into a regulatory subsidy of US Treasury rates, which completely impedes to know what the real undisturbed Treasury rates are, then by George it looks like she’s finally got it!