November 02, 2012

I will be tweeting Fabien Cohen and Les Pigeons.

Sir, in Hugh Carnegy in his report on France and François Hollande “Reluctant to reform”, November 2, mentions Fabian Cohen a young entrepreneur, a member of Les Pigeons. Mr Cohen apparently quite successfully initiated a protest against a capital gain tax increase in France, based on “You can’t tax someone who doesn’t take a risk at the same level. It is unfair and it is confiscatory for entrepreneurs and their associates”.

As you can understand I will immediately ask (tweet) Mr. Cohen and Les Pigeons the following: Do you feel it is fair and rational to have the access to bank credit of small businesses and entrepreneurs made even more difficult and expensive than what it normally is? Something which is of course the the natural consequence of capital requirements for banks, imposed by overly concerned regulators, who wish the banks to only lend to “The Infallible” and avoid like pest “The Risky”. 

Perhaps Mr. Cohen and Les Pigeons will help me ask the regulators the question that FT has not wanted to help me to ask them, namely… If banks are allowed immense equity returns when financing “The Infallible”, all in order to avoid risk, who is then supposed to finance “The Risky”, like Les Pigeons? The widows and the orphans?