Simon Johnson macht sich darüber Gedanken, wie die Ansteckungsgefahr im Falle des Scheiterns einer Großbank gemessen werden kann:
How are we to know if a particular event, like deciding not to bail out a big bank, will lead to contagion that spreads to other financial markets? Contagion is the key issue.
In Europe, the failure of just one large bank can do macroeconomic damage; governments there have let individual banks build balance sheets that are bigger than the country’s gross domestic product. In the United States, we too should fear megabanks; the big six bank-holding companies have become much bigger in recent years and now have combined assets worth more than 65 percent of G.D.P. [...]
People see one bank failure and fear the consequences – hence, panics and runs on the bank. Anyone who thinks that we solved this problem with forward-thinking central banks or fiscal interventions has not been paying close attention – either to the United States or to Europe – over the last three years.
We really need transparency on the exact exposures of banks. To whom have they lent and on what basis? Just telling supervisors does not help us at all, because sharing information only behind closed doors is just another potential mechanism for regulatory capture.
For large financial institutions – those with more than $100 billion in total assets – everything should be out in the open. If you want to operate in relative secrecy, stay small. The costs of today’s opaqueness are huge, creating the basis for the plea, “Save us or you’ll lose the world.”
Quelle: NYTimes
