What is the thesis?

Or is this just a tour d'horizon, without any discernible point?

Yet this is the official whose interest in banking regulation was so limited before the crash that, according to the FT, he would doze off in meetings on the subject.

quelle surprise then we're up sh1tcreek sans paddle. why is he still in post?

x

I bet hes got a brilliant plan that will save the economy and will make everybody as rich as Croesus. Or maybe hes just a chancer who's out of his depth and is making it up as he goes along

Can Mervyn King save the British economy?

Is this some new Guardian game?

Rearrange the following headline to make it correct?

Can the British economy be saved from Mervyn King?.

....Is the correct answer.

Merv. In case you hadn't already realised...

History will deliver a very harsh verdict.

Not only that, but one scheme, the funding-for-lending plan intended to get more cash from banks to the rest of us, had only been dreamed up a couple of weeks ago and is yet to have key details filled in

I will be interested to see how watertight the "funding for lending" aspects of this latest subsidy will be.

"Not very much" would be my best guess.

Or maybe hes just a chancer who's out of his depth and is making it up as he goes along

Or maybe "out of his depth" is not quite accurate.

Maybe its just that his goals are different to those of the general population.

Can Mervyn King save the British economy?

This kiddy presided over the biggest issuing of funny money in the UK

Unsubstantiated credit was doled out with such happy abandon

Credit was issued to people who could not realistically afford to pay it back in two or three lifetimes

All done to bolster a hyper-inflated housing market

Asking a question like can "Can Mervyn King save the British economy?"

Can a baby make baby food?

One day we'll look back at all this and have a jolly good laugh....well, Dave, George and Mervyn will.

The Bank of England governor is probably the man most responsible for getting Britain out of recession. So can he do it?

No.
He will toady up to Cameron just like he toadied up to Brown until it's time to get out with his mega pension.
He's a time server.

Mervyn King is a mechanic. The problem - that the basic engineering of the system is flawed - can't be solved by him.

Even though his term in office has been an unmitigated disaster, he still got given an honour in the 2011 birthday honours list: the Knight Grand Cross. Still, rewards for failure is very big in banking these days.

Yet this is the official whose interest in banking regulation was so limited before the crash that, according to the FT, he would doze off in meetings on the subject.

Must be still serving pheasant and port at the Bank of England restaurant. "Never mind time for a quick doze...those 'City Wiz Kids' are very clever...they know what they are doing!"

No. The only things we're any good at are financial services and public sector diversity consulting. We ship our cleaners in from Lahore, our tradesmen in from Poland and our doctors from Bangalore. We can't actually do anything ourselves! Hoe can you save an economy built on make-believe industries?

Merv is making it a lot worse by parating in QE

See the link below , UK total debt to GDP is 1000% that is 2.5 times Greece. The only reason we are not in crisis is tht we can print money through QE to buy our goverment Bonds 'Guilts' .

Problem is the more QE the more inflation as our curency is de-based. Take into acccount the QE amounts will have to keep increasing as monetized debt matures and the interst on it will reuqire more QE payments.

The Dollar, Euro GDP are all fiat currencies and the fact is ' Every singel fiat currency in history has ended up worthless, and the GDP is not exception and on that path. Its just a matter of time until it is completely devalued to pay off the debt through hyper inflation. Make sure you have tangible assets and the only money you should keep in the bank is money you are happy to lose.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=UK+debt+to+gdp+chart&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&biw=1280&bih=622&tbm=isch&tbnid=U4iQkuYCc8BX2M:&imgrefurl=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/psssst-france-here-why-you-may-want-cool-it-britain-bashing-uks-950-debt-gdp&docid=j2q0kHgmyn6IoM&imgurl=http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2011/12/World%252520debt%252520to%252520GDP.jpg&w=1047&h=783&ei=xH_fT57KI8S_8gO5_vS9Cw&zoom=1

I bet MK has a cunning plan.... a plan so cunning he could put a tail on it and call it a weasel.

As Mervyn King's scheduled to retire next year does he have any real interest in doing anything other than just make X's off his calendar and go through the motions?

I much prefer the Daily Mash's take on the situation - it has Mr. King digging his old guitar out & going round his local pubs doing Tom Petty covers.

Sleep well in the (So, basically, the choice is that we either redistribute some of the frankly obscene wealth we have funneled upwards or the whole system goes boom & the great unwashed rise up & kill us in our beds. Hmm, that's a tough one. Have to go away & think about it) fire.

Given the Governor of the Bank of England resembles the character 'Orinoco' from the Wombles, who was renowned for his capability to shirk work and fall asleep at the slightest opportunity, if pressed I would hazard a guess at NO!

One more thing , as all the banks are so highly leveraged from there reckless derivative gambling the national intereret rate has to be kept extremely low so that all the banks can maintain the margin requirements on the leveraged bets.

Because of this wages will not rise , savers will be thrown under the bus , infaltion will surge and cause negative real interest rates,(as fiat money is flooded into the economy) as a result it causes a negative feedback loop of dimishing demand, QE bailout, Austerity, dimishing demand ETC ETC.

Mervyn King could end it all by raising interst rates killing the reckless banks and rewarding savers and Labour which is the back bone of capitalism.

Instead he is keeping rates low rewarding speculators in the city and throwing the country under the bus.

Mervs legacy will not be one to remember as he bows down and serves the corrupt fradulent financial system and institutions.

He won't be able to get us out of recession because he's only in charge of monetary things, like interest rates (which there isn't scope to cut further) and QEing money into banks (where it sits, in part to bolster their reserves, and in part because there's a lack of demand for borrowing due to the lack of demand in general in the economy right now.)

We need fiscal action now - stimulus - not austerity - to get get growth back.

His record ain't so bad. We have a (very) stable currency and relatively low inflation, despite a turbulent environment. central banks need to be let alone to do what they do (manage the money supply). Recent weeks have seen the central banks of Turkey, China, Russia and a number of CEE countries move to react to the situation, as best they can. We need (and have) an adaptive, flexible central bank -- one that is not afraid of making decisions. This is good.

If Spain needs a bailout, Spain will get a bailout , Aditya (hint: EU funding will be matched by IMF funding if necessary [effectively doubling the size of the war chest] -- although I'm sure you already knew that).

There's this great delusion that somewhere out there there's a plan which will rescue us all.

You can't solve a multivariable problem with a simple scheme - or even a complicated one.

Rubbish. How would higher interest rates stimulate employment and growth?

Jeeesus, what nonsense is this?. You do understand the concept of an independent central bank...right? That the BoE is independent (and often disagrees with Gideon?)

There's this great delusion that somewhere out there there's a plan which will rescue us all.

You can't solve a multivariable problem with a simple scheme - or even a complicated one.

Glad to see you finally recognizing that deficit-fetishism is a nonsense. It took a while but you got there in the end.

You can't solve a multivariable problem with a simple scheme - or even a complicated one.

Mervyn's clearly not a whizz at multivariate analysis...

There are plenty of mathematicians in the city who could sort it out......You know those guys and galls who

derived all those derivatives....which unleashed the poison.

What we need is a re-incarnated JMK or perhaps a Krugman!

Yet the tools that the Bank has are too limited and too crude to do much of what is being asked of it. Just how limited, how crude, we may find out this summer.

Oh GOOD, no 'silly season' this year then?

Yet this is the official whose interest in banking regulation was so limited before the crash that, according to the FT, he would doze off in meetings on the subject

It is a shame that the self-satisfied old stoat did not awaken from his slumbers to ask for "greater clarity" about the extent to which the bankers were indirectly exposing us to further disaster;by insuring crap loans to the weakest Eurozone countries

Newly knighted Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King, who chairs the FPC, said there was "no reason to be worried" about UK banks' direct lending to struggling eurozone nations.

But he warned that indirect exposure and a generalised loss of investor confidence could cause bigger problems for Britain.

"Experience has shown that contagion has spread through financial markets, especially when there is uncertainty about the precise location of exposure," Sir Mervyn said.

He added the committee believed "greater clarity about the extent of these exposures would help limit the transition of problems to UK banks".

http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/16018023

No wonder that King is the subject of public deference from Cameron and Osborne; he is in charge of the £325bn quantitative-easing scheme; and in a few months the Bank will essentially replace the Financial Services Authority as the UK's top financial watchdog

How much longer can they go on printing money, monetising the public debt?

How long before it turns into a complete clusterfuck?

Not too long apparently

"Going South: Why Britain Will Have A Third World Economy By 2014, by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson

Amazon Reviews

'For over a century, Britain has been in denial about its decline. Unless it accepts the reality and gets its acts together soon, it may well join the South, that is, the developing world. That is the chilling message of this book, which you will start reading with incredulity but almost certainly close with the shocking realisation that it may well be right. Written with verve and edge, based on a profound understanding of Britain's history and full of insights about the economics, politics and popular culture of today's Britain, this book is an extremely powerful and sobering wake-up call for a nation that has lived off its past glory for too long.' - Ha-Joon Chang, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, and the author of Bad Samaritans and 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

'Atkinson and Elliot are savagely effective critics of the historic failure of Thatcher and Blair to check national decline in a world where our managerial and political elites do not know what to do about financial crisis. Their argument about how Britain is going south to developing country status is important because it counters wishful thinking about how we can become more Nordic and focuses the key questions about Britain's trajectory. This is what radical economic journalism should be about.' - Prof Karel Williams, CRESC, University of Manchester

No

I'm sure Mervyn King has found it much more congenial to stuff envelopes with QE cash for his Bankster chums than stay awake in meetings thinking up constraints to stop these same chums wrecking the British economy!

eeesus, what nonsense is this?. You do understand the concept of an independent central bank...right? That the BoE is independent (and often disagrees with Gideon?

You probably believe the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Press Complaints Commission, are independent, too. .... don't you?

."the head of the Bank of England is probably the man most responsible for getting Britain out of recession."

Did I miss something ?

The Bank of England governor is probably the man most responsible for getting Britain out of recession. So can he do it?

If evidence to date is anything to go by then no.

Merve the Swerve is responsible for the bank of england just about doing its job and eventually making sure the banking system didnt collapse. Dont overdo the credit though. The bank of england can create ulimited bank reserves. Saving the banks involved fulfilling its mandate of financial stability. Its a shame he didnt do it before he announced that Northern Rock was bust but there you go.

Can Mervyn King save the British economy?
Is this some new Guardian game?

Rearrange the following headline to make it correct?

I did just that and what I got was: He in shit creek not 'aving very many combs

(Go ahead and check)

But as to Merve getting the country out of recession. Please !

Glad to see you finally recognizing that deficit-fetishism is a nonsense

Wrong again, my dear chap. Being forced to borrow even more money at a time like this is bonkers.

What we need is a re-incarnated JMK or perhaps a Krugman!

One of the points about multivariant problems is that usually there is no mathematical solution.

<like interest rates (which there isn't scope to cut further)>

who knows they might come up with like borrow 20000 and we give extra 2500 free.

Problem with the situation is that Politicians are not that educated in economics and they rely on bankers for advice. We know bankers are idiots they could not see which way they were going with bank's money.

To sort it out one needs to be strong personality who does not care for his banking career and kick the butts of buggers who brought all these troubles

Mervyn King wants to collect his gold watch at retirement next year.

His economics is about as useful to the world today as an Apple 1 is useful at processing the transactions of a supermarket. Not a lot.

Who does Britain owe money to?

What does Britain buy from overseas?

Can Mervyn King save the British economy?

what economy, he has delibrately given those with some of the biggest debts a lifeline with low interest rates, people with mortgages, while those of us who saved get nothing.

King with the backing of our rich political elite are the problem.

1 billion to develop new nuclear engines, here's hoping the Iranians go to the UN to block that idea and save us a few bob.

Rubbish. How would higher interest rates stimulate employment and growth?

By getting rid of the Zombie Banks and forcing a debt write down.

We are wasting all our money on serviciing the interest on the debt that we took on from the private banks gambling habits and the debt they worked up through the dispicable fractional reserve banking system,

These interest payments will only act as a ball weight around the leg of the UK economy until they are written off.

For a prime example of this see Japan's lost decades.

The only way out of this is either to write of the debt through a debt jubilee, or hyper inflate the currency to pay off the debt, we cannot generate the growth needed to pay off the debt by producing more debt, and besides, as all debt is money if we pay off our debt the economy will collapse through severe deflation as there wouyld be no money in circulation.

Unfortuanetly either a debt Jubilee or hyper inflation will be devastating as all debt is money. So either way it will wipe out savers and people with pensions or any wealth denominated in the fiat currency of the GBP.

That is why i cannot emphasise the importance for everyone in the UK to get there wealth into tangible assets with no counterparty risk to the financial system through the paper fiat currency which is going to be eventually hyper infalted or written down.

Its happening all around right now, and were about to see it happen i nEurope where they will need to print trillions to pay off the interest on the debt as the debt matures.

There is no way out of this, and the politicans and bankers are just kicking the can and will eventually make it 100 X worse.

I would rather end the sytem now before the problems get even bigger.

All the yare doing right now is the equivalent of trying to payt off a mortage with a credit card. You cannot solve a debt problems by creating more debt, that is basically what it comes down too.

Wrong again, my dear chap. Being forced to borrow even more money at a time like this is bonkers.

Oh, but I heard somewhere - where was it? - that you 'can't solve a multivariable problem with a simple scheme'. I mean that would be like an indebted man refusing to borrow the money for a ladder to do a windowcleaning round in the evening to earn extra cash and instead deciding to save his bus fare by giving up his day job. Now that really would be bonkers 'my dear chap'.

Mervyn King reminds me of the Dormouse at the Mad Hatters tea party [he kept falling asleep and had his face pushed into his bowl to wake him up], the Mad Hatter being a composite of Osborne and Cameron. Heaven help us all with this unholy trinity at the helm of our economy.

His record ain't so bad. We have a (very) stable currency and relatively low inflation, despite a turbulent environment. central banks need to be let alone to do what they do (manage the money supply). Recent weeks have seen the central banks of Turkey, China, Russia and a number of CEE countries move to react to the situation, as best they can. We need (and have) an adaptive, flexible central bank -- one that is not afraid of making decisions. This is good.

mervyn king has printed 300 billion nicker in funny money

for the banks to buy Dogshit Bonds in order to bolster the market in the sales of Dogshit which no one wants to buy apart from the banks

yeah, right

'can't solve a multivariable problem with a simple scheme'

Very true. Which doesn't mean to say you have to persist in the patently absurd.

I refer your window cleaner to Mr Micawber.

Strange people Guardian Readers.

Mervyn King is like a fireman called to a block of rundown council facts which are burning trapping most of the occupants. While he is desperately trying to beat back the flames with his hose, and prevent the residents burning to death,

Guardian readers are like Chavs who throw bricks at him

The biggest fallacy out there right now is that the UK can print enough money to generate enough growth to pay down the debt.

Its Just not possible, with Gov debt ( which is banker debt) where it is 80% of GDP and contagion from our government purchases of European Soverign bonds which will never get paid back, banker debt our government took on is just going to keep on growing as the interest and principle on the debt matures and requres even more debt being produced just to keep the interst rate payments going in what is the biggest fiat currency ponzi scheme in human history.

The worlds fincnial system mathmatically has 100% chance of crashing as world debt not including derivatives and CDS is already estiamted at 200 trillion which is 300% of world GDP!!!

As real wealth is only created through Labour and resources , the only way we are goign to pay this off is if a race of aliens 20 Billion strong come to Earth and we enslave them and force them to work 24 hours a day!

While he is desperately trying to beat back the flames with his hose, and prevent the residents burning to death,

wot?

is 'e tryin' to wee-wee on the problem?

Mervyn King will be judged very harshly.

Under his watch, UK nominal GDP had the largest fall and the worst recovery since the great depression. The BoE's reaction in September 2008 was far too slow and they allowed inflation expectations to collapse.

In 2010 King encouraged the coalition to inflict spending cuts and tax rises on an economy still to recover from the recession, with interest rates still stuck at the zero lower bound.

One consequence of these tax rises was an increase in consumer prices. CPI rose above the inflation target. Hence it has been extremely difficult for the Bank of England to offset Osborne's contractionary fiscal policies.

During the ongoing issues in the Eurozone, King has consistently failed to credibly articulate what the Bank of England will do to maintain UK aggregate demand. Why has it taken since last autumn for the Bank to take steps to reassure investors in the UK about the BoE's ability to maintain demand in the face of events in Europe? He consistently emphasizes uncertainty around the world and provides little certainty about what the Bank of England will do to reduce this uncertainty.

Conventional inflation targeting, as conducted by the Bank of England, has proven to be deeply problematic at very low real interest and inflation rates.

The Bank of England has two choices for alternative monetary policy regimes, nominal GDP targeting (advocated by Brittan or Sumner) or raising the inflation target (advocated by Rogoff and Krugman).

In a recent speech Vince Cable advocated nominal GDP targeting.

Would be good to hear more about it in the Guardian.

Either way, economic historians have pinned considerable blame for the Great Depression and the stagflation in the 1970s on mistakes in monetary policy. No doubt history will judge King similarly.