The former head of the Bank of England says ‘at present there are so many areas of uncertainty’
Fmr head of the Bank of England says ‘at present there are so many areas of uncertainty’
Lord King, who was Governor of the Bank of England from 2003 – 2013, has told the ˿ that the current wars in Ukraine and Gaza have made formulating economic policy ‘very difficult’.
Speaking to ˿ HARDtalk, Lord King said the situation was more complicated than during the 2008 crash when he was in charge at the Bank of England.
‘The financial crisis was a crisis of the western banking system – so we knew where the problems were,’ he said. ‘Once we had decided to recapitalise the banking system and persuaded governments to do it, then the banking crisis ended.’
‘This is much more uncertain and dangerous,’ he said. ‘The only time I can think, in my lifetime, where there has been so much fear was the Cuban Missile Crisis.’
Lord King said current events made predicting the direction of the economy very difficult. ‘We can’t forecast the future. So when people say “GDP forecast for next year is 2.2%”, it’s a meaningless number. There is too much uncertainty.’
This, he said, meant governments around the world were struggling in their responses to pressing economic problems. ‘The role of economics is to help you think through the problem and identify the big risks we face so that governments can put in place mitigating solutions to them. We can’t change the uncertainty that is there, but we can try and cope with it better.’
‘The trouble at present is that there are so many areas of uncertainty, it’s very difficult to think of a simple strategy that will enable governments to cope,’ he said.