Bagehot Put It So Eloquently
Letter to the Editor
Alex J. Pollock | Financial Times
March 18, 2008
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Resident Fellow Alex J. Pollock
Resident Fellow
Alex J. Pollock
Sir, One day Bear Stearns was "denying that Bear faces a liquidity crisis or has lost the faith of traders" ("Bear Stearns' exposure to ailing funds worries shareholders", March 14)--and the next day it needed a bail-out.

As Walter Bagehot explained so perfectly in 1873: “Every banker knows that if he has to prove he is worthy of credit . . . in fact his credit is gone.”

Alex J. Pollock is a resident fellow at AEI.

About the Author

 

Alex J.
Pollock
  • Alex Pollock joined AEI in 2004 after thirty-five years in banking. He was president and chief executive officer of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. He is the author of numerous articles on financial systems and the organizer of the “Deflating Bubble” series of AEI conferences. In 2007, he developed a one-page mortgage form to help borrowers understand their mortgage obligations. At AEI, he focuses on financial policy issues, including housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, retirement finance, corporate governance, accounting standards, and the banking system. He is a director of the CME Group, the Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation, the International Union for Housing Finance, and the chairman of the board of the Great Books Foundation.

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  • Phone: 2028627190
    Email: apollock@aei.org
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