In the News: FoxBusiness

Prudent decision making cannot be legislated, portfolio manager Axel Merk tells FoxBusiness

“ 'There should be nothing wrong with making a wrong bet, but (the banks) should be the ones punished for it,' said Axel Merk, president of Merk Investments in Palo Alto, Calif. Regulators also need to ensure that no bank becomes so big that it will take down other banks – let alone the entire financial system -- if it fails, according to Merk.

'You can’t legislate people into making prudent decisions,' he said. 'What can be done is to ensure that the failure of any one institution doesn’t bring down the rest of the system.'

'To that end, regulators should require counterparties involved in complex trades to perform due diligence on the securities they buy from banks,' Merk said. 'That would make investors more accountable for the securities they purchase.' "