Morning:
10°c
Lord Turner isn't exactly shy at coming forward. You don't get to lead grand public bodies, including the FSA, by not having confidence in your talents.
So the author of today's report hails it as "a revolution" in financial regulation. That may be so, Lord Turner, but it isn't exactly rocket science.
Indeed, it says much about the weakness of our supervisory framework that Turner's study does seem transformatory. He's writing from the strength of hindsight, of course, but nevertheless a lot of what he says is obvious.
Banks were allowed to forget simple housekeeping. Now it's hailed as something new, as "counter-cyclical capital adequacy". That's saving for a rainy day, in English. Likewise, instructing them to be careful with their lending, not to hand out too much relative to their assets, isn't genius. And recommending they're not over-reliant on one source of cash should not require the chairman of the City watchdog's imprint.
There is so much of Turner's document that is logical it induces anger. Where was the Government, the Bank of England and yes, the FSA? (Turner arrived at the organisation just as Lehman was collapsing, so he is not tainted.) What were the banks - their executives, boards and shareholders - really thinking?
So unreliable are the banks that Turner says they cannot be trusted; the old principle that the market is always right is to be scrapped.
Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are embracing this review as though it is somehow magical. Their emphasis is on looking forward, not back, as to do the latter is too embarrassing.
We may get a new pan-European regulator. How that will work alongside the legion of existing supervisors remains to be seen.
One thing is clear. Those graduates who have turned away from the City should rethink: post-crisis, post-Turner, if they train as compliance officers, they will never be out of a job.
