Financial Times confirma los análisis de Quiñonero sobre Bankia

Análisis sereno e impecable.

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El periódico financiero más influyente de Europa recuerda los orígenes últimos de la crisis de Bankia con una precisión pedagógica:

Ever since the government stepped in to rescue Bankia two months ago, there have been mounting calls in Spain for an inquiry into what went wrong. Leading politicians so far turned a deaf ear, as they fear a probe could expose cosy links with the bank’s management.

Judges have now taken the matter out of their hands. Spain’s high court has opened a fraud probe into whether top executives falsified Bankia’s accounts and misled investors during the bank’s flotation. One of them is Rodrigo Rato, a former economy minister and, until recently chairman of Bankia.

If any criminal acts are uncovered, they should of course be punished. But this investigation into alleged misconduct in a single bank should not distract from the broader question of what went wrong in the system as a whole. Only a public investigation can demonstrate that Spain is willing to face up to what has led to the wreckage of its financial system.

This inquiry should address at least two points. First, there is the question of what led Spain’s regional savings banks to throw their money around, helping to create a housing bubble with easy credit. The cajas’ links with local politicians, anxious to curry favour with voters, were clearly too close. But there are also failings within the Bank of Spain, which did too little to halt the lending spree.

Second, there is the question of how the crisis was managed. The way in which Bankia was floated is a sticking point. But there is a broader issue over why it is taking so long for politicians to admit the true extent of the losses and take the decisive steps needed to deal with those losses.

Spain’s political class is rightly worried that the results of an inquiry may anger voters. But avoiding a mea culpa could create an even greater backlash. In the case of Bankia, hundreds of thousands of retail clients were stuffed with shares whose value has plummeted since the flotation. Madrid has to make clear to its citizens that the right lessons have been learnt and that any misconduct will not be tolerated again by the authorities.

Were Madrid to proceed with an inquiry, it would set an example for the rest of Europe. While Spain’s banking problems are on a different scale to that of many other countries, the underlying failures can be found elsewhere. Maintaining such cosy relations between banks and politicians is incompatible with the eurozone’s ambition for a banking union… Anatomy of a crisis. FT, 5 julio 2012.

Las negritas son mías.

A la espera del resultado de la investigación judicial, en curso, Financial Times subraya las tres catástrofes que están en el origen último del desastre final:

1. La gestión “filantrópica” de las cajas de ahorros, con su trama letal de política, corrupción y clientelismo, atizando la burbuja inmobiliaria.

2. La catastrófica gestión del Banco de España: perfectamente incapaz e irresponsable ante la corrupción del Estado financiero que se estaba reformando.

3. La gestión política (PSOE y PP) de la reforma del Estado financiero, intentando olvidar las graves responsabilidades gubernamentales, desde 2008 a primeros del 2012.

Desde su púlpito, Financial Times repite los argumentos que llevo años desarrollando, punto por punto: