Friday, November 22, 2013

All dollars (or Pounds, or Euros) should be equal!

The efficient market hypothesis, and the capacity of free markets to allocate efficiently financial resources have, as a consequence of the recent financial crisis, been seriously questioned. There is absolutely no cause for that.

In a free market all dollars pursuing assets are equal, and so the prices reflect the markets appreciations of returns, risks, and other factors… and so in essence, all assets will produce equivalent all included risk-adjusted returns. Like any bet on the roulette.

But then came bank regulators, with their risk-weighted capital requirements, more risk more capital, less risk less capital, and determined that some dollars, those being lent to what was perceived as “absolutely safe” were worth much more because these could be leveraged by banks much much more, than the dollars lent to what was perceived as “risky”. Like doubling the roulette payout when playing it safe, like betting on a color.

And of course that made it impossible for the markets to function. It would be like pricing assets in dollars Euros and Pounds, simultaneously without informing the markets of which currency was used. In fact, since bank capital when in “risk-free” land could sometimes be leveraged about 40 times more than when in “risky” land, the currencies used are perhaps more like dollars, pesos and yen. 

And so a dollar going to someone “risky” is for the banks worth de facto much much less than a dollar going to the AAAristocracy. Talk about financial exclusion! Talk about increasing inequality gaps!

Discriminating against risk-taking, in the "Home of the Brave"... you´ve got to be kidding!

Please regulators, allow a dollar to be a dollar for everyone! So that markets will work again!

PS. By the way who authorized all that?