Danmark v Irland

(Via Lunde) Her en leder i Financial Times fra i torsdags, der roser Danmarks bankpolitik i forbindelse med Amagerbankens konkurs:

Credit raters, who explicitly factor in expected bail-outs, are reassessing bank creditworthiness now that this expectation has changed. Funding costs have risen for Danish banks. (...)

Denmark’s politicians are reportedly having second thoughts. Making things tougher for surviving banks “was not the idea” when they allowed a state guarantee of bank liabilities to lapse two years after it was introduced – like in the rest of Europe – to contain fallout of the Lehman bankruptcy.

But if this was not the idea, it certainly should have been. Banks’ funding costs previously enjoyed a public subsidy which, as Ireland has shown, risks bankrupting the government. Having banks pay the true cost of their risk is a benefit to society, not a harm. If this makes credit costlier, it is because it used to be excessively cheap.

Enten dette eller midlertidig nationalisering. Noget skal man have til gengæld, og det er kun godt, at det gør ondt på de ansvarlige, ellers sker der ikke noget. At vi er tæt på at genopleve finanskrisen er bl.a. fordi man har villet undgå at lave regnskab.

Det bør nævnes, at den danske stat stadig garanterer for mange milliarder kroner bankobligationer, og hvis de går ned, er vi også Irland.