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Martin Wolf

Four ways to fix the bank problem

If one thing is clear about the events of the last two weeks, it is that the vaunted reforms introduced after the global financial crisis have not changed any of this that much, or at least not enough.

Martin WolfColumnist

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Banks are designed to fail. And so they do. Governments want them to be both safe places for the public to keep their money and profit-seeking takers of risk. They are at one and the same time regulated utilities and risk-taking enterprises.

The incentives for management incline them towards risk-taking, just as the incentives for states incline them towards saving the utility when risk-taking blows it up. The result is costly instability.

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Financial Times

Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, London. He was awarded the Commander of the British Empire in 2000 “for services to financial journalism”.

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