Bill Black explains why higher capital requirements for banks is only part of the solution. Capital is simply an accounting measure of Assets minus Liabilities and bankers are not above gaming this to their advantage.
….There were hundreds of Office of Thrift Supervision examiners whose opinions repeatedly proved vastly superior to the economists’ predictions during the S&L debacle. Akerlof and Romer concluded their 1993 article with these sentences in order to emphasize this message to their peers.
The S&L crisis, however, was also caused by misunderstanding. Neither the public nor economists foresaw that the [deregulation] of the 1980s were bound to produce looting. Nor, unaware of the concept, could they have known how serious it would be. Thus the regulators in the field who understood what was happening from the beginning found lukewarm support, at best, for their cause. Now we know better. If we learn from experience, history need not repeat itself. (Akerlof and Romer 1993: 60)
Larry and Janet: please listen to the regulators in the field. Please end Ben Bernanke’s practice of placing economists in charge of Fed supervision. The Fed’s economists are a major source of the Fed’s problems….. the solution needs to come from the people in the field. That is particularly true with regard to detecting systemic risks.
Read more at Bill Black: Higher Bank Capital Requirements are Necessary but not Sufficient to Prevent the Next Crisis « naked capitalism.