I just noticed that Mervyn King, former Bank of England Governor, has taken a place on the HoL Economic Affairs Committee, and is therefore due to take part hearing evidence in an enquiry on quantitative easing [QE].
This is a curious state of affairs.
Lord King was head of the Bank when QE was instigated in March 2009, and piloted the program, which involved not just monetary policy decisions by the MPC, but also important execution decisions in the markets area, with the set up of reverse auctions, and decisions about what assets to purchase.
An enquiry into QE is bound to either explicitly touch on, or have looming in the background, certain questions that involve issues about King’s own views and actions. For example: should QE have been embarked on at all? Did
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