Vince Cable: Disingenuous Bankers Are Trying to Derail Reforms

Vince Cable has accused bankers of using the economic turmoil in Europe to try to derail reform of the financial sector, according to Guardian, 31st August 2011 

The business secretary said that “louder and louder voices” were being raised among some of the big British banks giving warning that regulatory change in Britain would put the recovery at risk.

The Independent Commission on Banking is expected to recommend separating banks’ retail operations from their investment arms when it reports on 12 September.

There have been attacks on the proposals from the director general of the CBI, John Cridland, and British Bankers’ Association’s chief executive, Angela Knight. Cridland has said taking action to reform the banks now would be “barking mad”, while Knight warned imposing the measures on lenders risked denting confidence and cutting the supply of credit.

The reality is that even ring-fencing or a full Glass-Steagal style separation of retail and ‘casino’ banking is still just tinkering with the current financial system. It might make the system marginally more safe, but it does nothing to address the fundamental problems.

Until we realise that the crucial issue is money  – who gets to create it and how they use it – then we’ll be missing the point. Speculating about what minor impact various regulations will have isn’t going to change the fact that the underlying structure of banking is fundamentally unsafe. The only real, long term solution is to reform the “money creation process” – implement clear, fair rules without special privileges for everybody, and then we will be able to calculate how the economy is going to be.