Ancora sulla Grecia. L'ecologia dell'intelligenza negli USA. Come evitare di dover salvare le banche un'altra volta?

Vi raccomando il breve documentario sulla crisi del debito greco realizzato dal Wall Street Journal: potete guardarlo qui sotto:




Qui invece trovate gli articoli che il WSJ sta dedicando alla crisi greca.

Eccellente articolo di Thomas Friedman sul New York Times: riassume bene una delle ragioni per cui ammiro gli USA e per cui continuo ad essere un acceso sostenitore dell'ecologia dei cervelli (la necessità di costruire un habitat sociale ed economico che coltivi le idee innovative e le persone creative, indipendentemente da ogni altra loro caratteristica) mentre non sopporto la retorica del ritorno dei cervelli (se li fai tornare per farli rimbecillire a che serve farli rientrare?). Certo che gli USA devono curare alcuni dei loro (e non solo loro) mali se desiderano restare il paese di riferimento per libertà di iniziativa e innovazione: l'Op-Ed di Frank Rich sul Times di oggi sviluppa alcuni spunti di riflessione.


Intanto che l'America riflette su come migliorarsi,
l'Economist dedica un'analisi alla crescita della produttività negli USA, al cui confronto l'Europa impallidisce. Vorrei attirare la vostra attenzione sul confronto tra il tasso di crescita annuale della produttività negli USA e in Italia nel decennio 1998-2008:  2.2% vs. 0.4%. In un decennio questo porta ad una differenza del 20% A me sembra un dato significativo. Anche le previsioni per i prossimi 10 anni, nei quali la produttività USA dovrebbe crescere solo dell'1.5%, contro lo 0.5% italico, sono disarmanti.

Dopo due decenni così basteranno tre lavoratori USA per produrre lo stesso output orario di quattro lavoratori italiani.


Sul tema della riforma delle banche e della regolamentazione il punto di vista della Fed e della amministrazione Obama sembrano avvicinarsi
mentre sembra chiara l'intenzione del comitato di Basilea di evitare un ripetersi dei bailouts del 2008:

the final report of the Cross-Border Bank Resolution Group of the Basel Committee called for “firm-specific contingency planning” that would help the most interconnected financial companies survive a crisis or, if necessary, be dismantled in an orderly fashion, without risking a global financial crisis.

Il rapporto completo è disponibile a questo link ed ecco il comunicato stampa che lo annuncia:

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision today issued its final Report and Recommendations of the Cross-border Bank Resolution Group.
Mr Nout Wellink, Chairman of the Basel Committee and President of the Netherlands Bank, noted that "the resolution of a cross-border bank is a complex and multidimensional process and the financial crisis exposed gaps in intervention techniques and tools needed for an orderly resolution. Based on the lessons of the crisis and our analysis of national resolution frameworks, I believe that implementation of the Committee's recommendations will help make meaningful progress toward addressing systemic risk and the too-big-to-fail problem."
The report, which was first issued for consultation in September 2009, sets out 10 recommendations that fall into three categories:

• Strengthening national resolution powers and their cross-border implementation. National authorities need to have powers to intervene sufficiently early and to ensure the continuity of critical functions.
• Firm-specific contingency planning. Banks, as well as key home and host authorities, should develop practical and credible plans to promote resiliency in periods of severe financial distress and to facilitate a rapid resolution should that be necessary. The plans should ensure access to relevant information in a crisis and assist the authorities' evaluation of resolution options. One of the main lessons from the crisis was that the enormous complexity of corporate structure makes resolutions difficult, costly and unpredictable.
• Reducing contagion. Risk mitigation through mechanisms such as netting arrangements, collateralisation practices and the use of regulated central counterparties should be strengthened to limit the market impact of a bank failure.

Recognising the wide diversity in national legal and resolution frameworks, the Committee's report represents an internationally agreed set of recommendations for improving resolution. It recommends that national authorities seek convergence of national resolution tools and measures to promote the coordinated resolution of banks active in multiple jurisdictions. The report also recommends that systemically important cross-border banks and groups provide a plan to preserve the firm as a going concern, promote the resiliency of key functions, or facilitate a rapid resolution or wind-down should that prove necessary.
The Committee also recommends that supervisors work closely with their foreign counterparts and relevant resolution authorities to understand how complex group structures and operations could be resolved in a crisis. If an institution's group structures are too complex to permit an orderly and cost-effective resolution, national authorities should consider imposing regulatory incentives, through capital or other prudential requirements, to encourage simplification of the structures.

Al riguardo vi segnalo anche l'articolo di Stefano Micossi su La Voce di qualche giorno fa. Un rapporto più lungo centrato sulla situazione europea è disponibile a questo link: ecco una sintesi delle raccomandazioni del rapporto.


SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
All EU cross-border banking groups would be required to sign up to a new deposit guarantee scheme managed by the European Banking Authority (EBA). The scheme would be fully funded ex-ante by levying fees determined on an actuarial risk basis. Participating banks would undertake to provide all relevant information required for effective supervision to the EBA and the Colleges of supervisors.
       All banking groups would be supervised and, in case of need,
subjected to mandatory resolution procedures on a consolidated basis,
under the law of the parent company. Subsidiaries chartered in separate
jurisdictions, but unable to survive a crisis of the parent company on their
own, would also fall under the same authority.
       Banking groups would be free to set up fully stand-alone
subsidiaries, under the law of the host countries, but the entities would
then have to meet precise requirements of independence of capital,
liquidity and other critical functions.
       All national supervisors would have administrative powers to
manage early corrective action and resolution, according to the principles
outlined by the Basel Supervisors.
       Supervision, early action and reorganisation would be managed by
strengthened Colleges of supervisors, under the leadership of the parent
company supervisor and a regime of full exchange of information amongst
interested national supervisors. The Colleges of supervisors would make
their proposals to the EBA, which would sanction them with its own
decisions and would mediate disputes between national supervisors.
       By offering all interested parties in a resolution procedure the full
guarantee that they will be heard and treated fairly before an independent
authority, the EBA would create the conditions in which jurisdictions other
than that of the parent company will be ready to accept delegating to the
latter the resolution of the entire banking group on a consolidated basis.
Mandated action will also ensure that supervisory forbearance would not
be used to favour national interests to the detriment of stakeholders from
other jurisdictions.