Some FT readers undoubtedly remember – and miss – Willem Buiter’s inimitable turn of phrase since he left his Maverecon blog on FT.com for the undoubtedly more lucrative role of Citigroup’s chief economist, among other things.
Buiter reminded us earlier this year of his flair for quirky metaphors, remarking on how reduced financial and economic growth figures merely suggest a wider problem, “just like finding a mouse in your soup”.
We’re glad to see he is still at it with the metaphors, suggesting on Wednesday that we should views markets as “noisy children”.
Indeed, as the Daily Telegraph reported, Buiter, referring to growing jitters among investors about prospects of a double-dip recession, noted that markets have predicted eight of the last three recessions, adding:
“You have to pay attention to them but you shouldn’t take them too seriously.
Buiter’s broader point was that the wave of fiscal tightening planned in various countries was “unnecessary” but, he stressed, was unlikely to tip the world into a double-dip recession.
Ahead of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee meeting on Thursday, Buiter also had advice for the UK, warning that it would be “unwise” to close the Bank’s Special Liquidity Scheme without putting something else in its place.
The scheme, which is due to end in 2012, provided the banks with £185bn of emergency funding. Mervyn King, the Bank’s governor, has insisted in the past that the scheme would not be extended.
The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, meanwhile, is expected to leave interest rates on hold at 0.5 per cent on Thursday, and is also expected to maintain its quantitative easing target at £200bn of asset purchases.
As for Buiter, we’re glad to see he’s still putting out some forthright views, even though he wrote in his final post on Maverecon last December:
As a consequence of this career move [to Citi], Maverecon will be mothballed. That is the logical implication of brand integrity and credibility. In Maverecon I wrote under the cover of ‘academic immunity’ . Academics have no duty other than to state the truth as they see it – to ’speak truth to power’. This gives them the ability to be undiplomatic, blunt, tactless and outspoken in ways that are unacceptable in the wider world – the world of grown-ups.
Commenting then on what we could – and could not – expect from his post-Maverecon writings, he harked back to his earlier roles on the Bank’s MPC and also at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, saying:
Unlike my Maverecon blog, my writings and public statements of those years therefore don’t contain words like ‘complete bollocks’.
Quite, Willem.
Related links:
Banks to run tougher stress tests – FT
Martin Wolf: A bail-out for Greece is just beginning – FT
Investment outlook: No to double-dip – TheStreet