AIB ex-Director: I should have been more pushy in opposing risk-taking at bank

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Interesting article on how even those who were skeptical and thought the mythical "soft landing" would happen, got sucked into the accepted wisdom.

The salient point is this:

Bankers tend to be myopic and to take excessive risks during booms. These tendencies are almost certainly reinforced by competitive pressure. The day-to-day business of dealing with the threat from competitors and of defending market share is real, but disaster is an abstraction until it breaks.

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It shows the need for concrete regulation to be put in place to, esssentially, protect banks from themselves and each other. It could even be argued that banking is perhaps one area when competition is not good.