The Great Debate

- Laurence Copeland is a professor of finance at Cardiff University Business School and a co-author of “Verdict on the Crash” published by the Institute of Economic Affairs. The opinions expressed are his own. -

Suppose that, instead of appeasing Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler at Munich in 1938, Neville Chamberlain had taken Britain to war, what would today’s history books say about the episode?

It is of course impossible to know. Perhaps something along the lines: “the British prime minister’s stubborn refusal to compromise resulted in a war which dragged on for 6 months at a cost of over 300,000 lives.....” Make up your own scenario.

We can never know. But we can be 100 percent certain the history books would NOT now say anything like: “by refusing to appease the dictators, Neville Chamberlain saved more than 30 million lives, prevented the division of Europe and saved the world from 40 years of Cold War”.

In the same way, we can be absolutely sure that, if former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had raised interest rates and tightened credit in 2005 or 2006, putting a stop to the lending boom before it could become a risk to the banking system as a whole, he would not today be feted as the man who saved the world from the worst financial crisis in 60 years.

– John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –

The international system of bank regulation, epitomised by the Basle II process and the light-touch principles-based regulation of Britain’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) has comprehensively failed.

In too many instances, light-touch principles-based regulation with an emphasis on banks’ internal risk controls turned out to be no effective regulation at all.

– John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –

Like the sorcerer’s apprentice, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his predecessor Alan Greenspan have unleashed a series of ever-larger asset bubbles they cannot control.

Now the Fed’s decision to cut interest rates to between zero and 0.25 percent, coupled with a promise to keep them there for an extended period, and the threat to conduct even more unconventional operations in the longer-dated Treasury market risks the biggest bubble of all, this time in U.S. government debt.

– John Kemp is a Reuters columnist.  The views expressed are his own –

By John Kemp

LONDON (Reuters) – By driving up long-term real interest rates, the forthcoming flood of U.S Treasury borrowing threatens to crowd out the amount of capital for investing in other asset classes, creating a much tougher environment for commodity prices over the next two to three years.

Like many other asset classes, commodity prices have benefited from an influx of funds in recent years driven by three related factors: