Friday, October 7, 2011

Where were the Universities when global bank regulations were designed?

There can be little doubt about that banks are one of the most important actors in the financial system, perhaps even the most important. By means of the Basel Accord of 1988, a proposal in June 1999 for a new capital adequacy framework, and the release of Basel II on 26 June 2004, more and more banks around the world were set to follow the same global regulations… and this is clearly impacting the area of finance, in many ways, more and more each day. 

That said, because of some strange and inexplicable reasons, the issue of bank regulations has been basically ignored by our universities, and most, or perhaps even all of the MBAs, graduate without the faintest idea about the existence of capital requirements for banks that distort immensely the flows of financial resources. 

Why is that? Why do they consider so often in the study material other distortions like tax deductibility for the service of debt but not for equity, and not this regulatory distortion? Had they´ve done so, then perhaps the academicians would have long ago denounced the outright stupidities that, courtesy of the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, have been introduced in the current bank regulations. Had the Universities taken an interest in this matter we most probably would not be suffering the current crisis, at least not in its current systemic form.

Here is a video that explains a small portion of the craziness of our current bank regulations, in an apolitical red and blue! http://bit.ly/mQIHoi