Thursday, July 28, 2016

Would Bernardine of Siena have accused the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision of usury?

In Samuel Gregg’s “For God and Profit” 2016 I read “Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444)…a member of the famously ascetic Franciscan order [opined that] “Usury concentrates the money of the community in the hands of the few, just as if all the blood in a man’s body ran to his heart and left his other organ depleted”

And I wondered what would Bernardine of Siena have opined on the Basel Committee’s risk weighted capital requirements for banks? These, no doubt about it, concentrates bank credit in the few hands of those perceived, decreed and concocted ex ante as “safe”, like sovereigns and the AAArisktocracy; and leave the other vital organ of the real economy, like the SMEs and entrepreneurs lacking of it.