BBC Roundtable Discussion on Europe’s Banking Crisis

Its always interesting to hear some great thinkers discuss issues in this format. This meeting brought together Jeffery Sachs, Gillian Tett, and Hugh Hendry.

I believe Hugh gets it right: Europe needs to let the banks that made bad decisions fail.

Towards the end, though, Hugh discusses imposing stricter legislation on banking dividends, and this is where I think he misses the mark: If banks are allowed to fail, they are not going to arbitrarily raise their dividends to boost their stock price, something that only makes sense if you are going to get a bailout.