So Basel III is finally with us…….phew……can’t wait for Basel IV. I’m not sure about a fifth one as that really would be a joke too far but then again if we can have a Rocky and Rambo V why not Basel V? We will really be up the creek when that one comes out. Is this one likely to change anything? No one seems to think so but then again 2 years ago I said the same thing about Basel II!!

It all comes down to leverage which now is well understood. The new capital requirements simply squeeze poorly capitalised banks a bit harder but really make sod all difference to the underlying problem which as we all know is excess credit creation. This credit creation is also known as money supply expansion. Are credit and money the same thing? well yes and no. When you get a new loan from the bank, you have received credit. This credit appears as money in your bank account and can be converted (though usually ins’t) into note and coin. But here’s the nub. Whilst money, the the form of note and coin, cannot be destroyed (ok you could burn it), when you pay back your loan that money is cancelled…in a puff of smoke. It only existed in your imagination. Of course that same “money” can be relent but new credit can always be created as long as there is enough “equity” in the bank…….come in Tier 1 capital and other assorted IOUs.

For example, the money supply in New Zealand has contracted by nearly $10bln in the period from Feb 09 to Jul 10. That’s why there’s no money in the economy……it’s goneski. But if we dealt in real money it would never disappear; once it was created it stayed in circulation or under your bed but it could not be destroyed.

The ability of banks to inflate and deflate the economy is still very much theirs with central banks acting like the lunatics they are by playing important games with their interest rates. They haven’t quite worked out the mess they made over the last 15 years by focusing on inflation and forgetting about asset prices, leverage and moral free speculation.

Gareth Morgan notes this in his take on it but again misses the real point, as does Basel 1,2 and 3 (and probably 4 and 5). It is the quality of money supplied into an economy that is the most important aspect of the economy. Copious amounts of speculative credit has blown out the “real” economy creating a mess which could take decades to unwind.

But we need to address this sooner or later….otherwise we will get the same maneuvering again ………or is it the same manuva?