April 01, 2015

Making clear the role of dangerously lousy bank regulations, would help to bridge many differences in Greece.

Sir, Martin Wolf writes: “The creditor side considers its generosity to profligate Greeks exemplary. The Greeks believe that private lenders were guilty of irresponsible lending, that the “rescue” was not of Greece but of those selfsame careless lenders and, above all, that Greeks have suffered enough. Both positions have merit. But no good will come from hurling such charges at one another”, “A mishap should not seal Greece’s fate”, April 1.

Absolutely! But what could have been happening if for instance a Martin Wolf had used his platform at FT to ask: “But what were European bank regulators doing allowing banks to lend to Greece's  government against basically no capital at all, so that banks had all incentives on earth to lend to Greece excessively?”

Would that have made a difference? I believe so.

As is, in the hurling of accusations between Greece and creditors, no one says a word about the role bank regulators played. They are the ones most to blame… but seemingly they got themselves a lot of protectors.

That is truly sad. The reality is that what Greece most needs now, is to liberate itself from regulations which, by favoring the access to bank credit of those who can only dig it deeper into the hole where it find itself, government bureaucrats, discriminates against the fair access to bank credit of those who can most help it to recover, its SMEs and entrepreneurs.

@PerKurowski