Comments on: More regulation?

By: Stuart Fairney

Stuart Fairney — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:20:26 +0000

You belive the housing market does not exist??

By: Bazman

Bazman — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:23:55 +0000

Errr! The taxpayer. These communist socialist fools.

By: Bazman

Bazman — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:18:06 +0000

I agree absolutely in minimal regulation. This idea of creating markets where they do not exist is absolutely absurd, Take the railways and power….. Housing? Do not get me started. luking aftr ya m8ts. Cameron in a nutshell.

By: alan jutson

alan jutson — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:04:29 +0000

“It would be interesting to find out what actually went on in their childhood that makes them crave so much control over other peoples lives”

They probably used to kill spiders, ants, snails, and the like for fun, then moved on bit by bit to try and control other peoples lives.

It sad but true, that this is how some of the worst criminal minds started to develop, its all about power and control which gives them a high.

By: Adrian Peirson

Adrian Peirson — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:18:22 +0000

Living in Modern Britain is like trying to swim in Treacle, why can’t they just leave us alone, oh I forgot, Socialists Communists do not believe in personal freedom, every aspect of our lives has to be micromanaged.
It would be interresting to find out what actually went on in their childhood that makes them crave such absolute control over other peoples lives.

By: figurewizard

figurewizard — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:27:59 +0000

The fact that Northern Rock failed despite being dedicated mortgage bank does not reflect badly on the notion of a new Glass Steagall act. It was a badly run bank with a reckless business plan so it was not exactly ‘traditional’ in its approach to its business. The subsequent problems suffered by other mortage banks in the UK were as a direct result of the interbank credit crisis, heralded by Northern Rock not because they were reckless too.

The overwhelming advantage of a Glass Steagall approach would be a significant reduction or perhaps elimination of banks that are ‘too big to fail.’ Had this been the case two years ago it would have been a lot easier to ring fence individual problem players without calling the whole system into question. This would of course be even easier to accomplish if a strengthened and suitably empowered Bank of England were to have sole responsibility for it. No tripartitie regulation would then mean no chance of buck passing.

By: Alan Wheatley

Alan Wheatley — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:20:33 +0000

It seems to me that if credit rating is of any use it is another factor to be considered with respect to regulation.

Is not credit worthiness inversely proportional to risk?

Should those organisation that issue credit ratings be subject to regulation?

Can those with the relevant knowledge shed some enlightenment on this topic, please?

By: Debate around the web « The press, the media and regulation policy

Debate around the web « The press, the media and regulation policy — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:37:16 +0000

[...] John Redwood MP has written about financial regulation: “The issue is do the regulators have a leader or top officials with both the judgement and the confidence to use that judgement to control bank balance sheets sensibly? It does not require more people or new armies of number crunchers. You can do it by just examining the balance sheets of the top half a dozen UK based large banks. [...]

By: DBC Reed

DBC Reed — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:54:37 +0000

Can we be sure that just looking over the balance sheets of banks annually will be sufficient to identify problems?
Nobody remembers the Barings debacle,which should have given the banking industry advanced notice that respected institutions could be hollowed out and the evidence concealed : in advance of the Credit Crunch that is.
Conceivably the sub-prime backed toxic assets whose implosion started the Credit crunch proper,would have appeared quite reliable on balance sheets since they had received triple A ratings.
It is difficult to see what the regulatory authorities over here could have done when so much worthless paper was being produced in the States and pushed round international markets .

Reply: It is not easy preventing or spotting a Barings style collapse, where things went wrong within the bank itself and where the official figures do not reveal the damage until it is too late. It took the Board by surprise, as well as the regulators.The overextension of credit by most banks in 2005-7 was in contrast easy to spot from annual published figures. The off balance sheet items were clear, but more importantly the on balance sheet items were excessive.

By: Waramess

Waramess — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:23:44 +0000

All of todays posts are most eloquently covered by the following:

http://www.bloomberg.com/avp/avp.htm?N=av&T=Harvard%27s%20Ferguson%20Expects%20%60Protracted%27%20Low%20U.S.%20Growth&clipSRC=mms://media2.bloomberg.com/cache/vVWD2592hVG0.asf

A real must for anyone with ten minutes to spare