A year and a half after the bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank, one might be offended to see American banks once again obtain from their regulators, when the time comes to apply them at the national level, a weakening of the banking rules developed at the global level by the Basel Committee. One might be jealous of them for having gained this competitive advantage over European banks, which already have difficulty competing with them in terms of size or stock market value. Remember that this is far from the first time that they have twisted the authorities’ arm – they are now watering down the Basel 3 rules but are still not fully applying those of Basel 2. Finally, point out that such a relaxation of their constraints is the height of irony, when most of the latest crises, from the bursting of the Internet bubble to the Madoff scandal to the subprime disaster, were not only made in America, but have wreaked a large part of their havoc in Europe.
However, it would be wrong to give in too quickly to this facility. Rather than criticizing American banks, the best thing would probably be to take inspiration from them.
