This week Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, declared that the capital requirements in last year’s Basel III deal must be raised for large banks. Three days earlier Daniel Tarullo, Federal Reserve Governor, went further, suggesting as much as a doubling of the Basel ratios for the very biggest banks. Meanwhile Michel Barnier, European Union financial services commissioner, takes the opposite position: “We can’t rush forward,” he says. The radical reformers are lining up against gradualists. On any serious reading of the evidence, the radicals are right.
美國財政部長蒂姆•蓋特納(Tim Geithner)本週宣佈，去年巴塞爾協議III(Basel III)對大銀行提出的資本要求必須進一步提高。在那之前三天，美聯準(FED)理事丹尼爾•塔魯洛(Daniel Tarullo)甚至更進一步，建議對於那些特別大的銀行，資本要求應該提高到巴塞爾比率的兩倍。同時，歐盟(European Union)金融服務專員米歇爾•巴尼耶(Michel Barnier)持相反意見。他表示：「我們不能操之過急。」激進改革派正聯合起來，對抗漸進派。只要認真研究一下各種證據，你就會發現：激進派是對的。