La ballata della crisi

All’Istituto Bruno Leoni per un seminario, Arnold Kling ha iniziato il suo intervento con una buffa quanto istruttiva “canzoncina”. Ai versi sarebbe abbinato qualche passo di danza, ma per vostra fortuna mi limito ad incollare qua sotto le parole. Non è stato solo un modo divertente per cominciare un discorso. E’ una canzoncina molto istruttiva:

The financial crisis will produce a battle
And that is, “What will be the narrative?”
They will tell you that the failure was all moral
But I say it was mostly cognitive

The loans a bank regrets are what I call bad bets.
They made a bigger mess with leverage to excess.
And when they spread their woes they fell like dominoes.
They spoiled each others’ fun with new-style banking runs.

What made it all go wrong?
Just listen to my song.

Capital regulations were sure arbitraged
Bank protection against risk was just a mirage
With securitization, requirements did fall.
With a SIV a bank needed no equity at all.

Capital regulations were unsafe and unsound.
Their perverse implications brought the whole system down.