Steve Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, lambastes central banks and other financial officials for their handling of the global financial crisis.
“Regulatory reform around the world has been stymied by politics,” he told CNBC.
“We need to take a very careful look at central banking policy in particular that was reckless and irresponsible in condoning the pre-crisis excesses of asset bubbles and reckless financial innovation.”
Central bankers were “unwilling or unable to take the punch bowl away when the party was getting particularly good, under the false premise that they always had the tools and power to clean up the mess after the crisis,” Roach says.
“We don’t want central bankers who are adept at post-crisis damage control. We want central bankers and regulators who do an excellent job of preventing crises like these from occurring again in the future.”
Roach continued, “I don’t really see anything coming out of the rhetoric of central banking circles, the regulatory reform actions, that gives me confidence there’s a broad acceptance of that key premise.”
“The West, especially the Anglo-Saxon economies, went on a drunken binge of excess consumption, levered up to the eyeballs with totally inadequate savings. … It was reckless, irresponsible and it’s over.”
Recent financial stability has lessened the appetite for financial reform.
"It's unfortunate because without balanced, comprehensive reform, there are still dangers to the nascent financial recovery," Joseph Engelhard, policy analyst at investment research firm Capital Alpha Partners, told Reuters.
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