Pubblichiamo un'acuta breve nota di Bergamini sulla crisi bancaria italiana e la colpevole ignavia europea. L'ora si avvicina...
The banking crisis on the wall
In Italy the banking crisis has been written on the wall for some time,
the product of the concurrent circumstances of a weak economy (with
attendant increase in the banks' NPL [non performing loans]), the imposition by the ECB of ever
tighter capital requirements along with near-zero interest rates and
untimely adoption of bail-in provisions.
Brexit (but it could as well have been the exit
of Mexico from Nafta, for that matter) provided the global speculators
with a suitable pretext to shoot on the battered Italian Banks.
Now
let us figure what the government and central bank of a sovereign
country would do in order to stem the full-blown effects of a crisis
such as that under way in Italy.
Number one, they would intervene in
the market by purchasing massive amounts of stocks (mainly banks, but
possibly also other blue chips). Needless to say, such market
transactions should be carried out in a professional fashion : any
market practitioner knows that to be effective asset purchases must be
timed to coincide with short-coverings, with a view to magnifying the
effect on prices by virtue of market squeeze.
Let me remind to
the doubters that, when in 1998 the Asian financial crisis spread to
Hong Kong, the Hongkong Monetary Authority accomplished just that : at
one point it had bought 11 percent of the Hang Seng Index.
Number
two, market operations would be coupled with a clear, explicit and
unambiguous statement by the concerned government agencies/central bank
to the effect that it was utterly unacceptable that the country's banks
be the punching ball of the international speculators, and all the
firepower at their disposal stood ready to back up such statement.
Now
if we compare the suggested course of action with the unseemly
give-and-take currently ongoing between the Italian government, the Bank
of Italy (provided there still is an Italian Central Bank) and their
various European counterparts in Bruxelles and Frankfurt, it seems to me
that we have one more reason to blame the euro that not only bears a
responsibility for exacerbating the crisis of the Eurozone on account of
the detrimental austerity policies embedded in its constitution, but
also deprives member countries of the means to defend themselves
promptly and effectively.
Finally, if all of the above sounds
analogous to what the European institutions should have done (and
culpably did not do) during the Eurozone's sovereign crisis, then yes,
this actually is the replay of that same song sheet.
