Radicals Right to Take on the Banks

This week Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, declared that the capital requirements in last yearâ??s Basel III deal must be raised for large banks. Three days earlier Daniel Tarullo, Federal Reserve Governor, went further, suggesting as much as a doubling of the Basel ratios for the very biggest banks. Meanwhile Michel Barnier, European Union financial services commissioner, takes the opposite position: â??We canâ??t rush forward,â? he says. The radical reformers are lining up against gradualists. On any serious reading of the evidence, the radicals are right.