Beware bankers opening banks

Beware bankers opening banks

Let's keep this in the right perspective. We have a crisis in
the construction sector, which affected the banking system, which
in turn affects everything else.

And we know bankers. They spread their problems over the whole
economy so that governments come to their rescue. That's akin to
holding a country to a ransom.

It's been always the same old story. They didn't count the
number of cranes at the construction sites in Dallas, Texas back
in the eighties. During the 1980's property loans have formed an
ever bigger part of commercial banks' loans. Banks had a total
exposure of US$210 billion with $350 billion out in commercial
property loans -- equivalent to 370 percent of American banks'
total equity (The Economist, Dec. 9, 1989).

Don't those guys ever learn, or do they earn their money
because of the short memory of the markets? When a bank is robbed
they call the police. I think we should do the same when they
open a bank.

OSVALDO COELHO

Jakarta