The Report into the Northen Rock bank failure "criticized Bank of England Governor Mervyn King for failing to act in August when the European Central Bank made extra funds available in an attempt to stop credit markets from freezing up.Quote from Champion:
Mervyn King is brittle and didactic.Of course Bernanke fucked things up a couple of times when he ran off at the mouth unwisely before he learnt how and when to keep his trap shut as Fed Chairman.
But King was the wrong choice as BOE Governor when appointed. He wants to hike rates when it is not needed
To be honest, the complete hash of the Northern Rock debacle was because of it being mishandled by the BOE.
King had told the (UK parliamentary) committee last year that he had felt it would be wrong to intervene to bail out banks from their riskier investments, but the committee said it was unconvinced.
In our view, the lack of confidence in the money markets was a practical problem and the Bank of England should have adopted a more proactive response." [CNN Money}.
This failure was a stark example of how the BOE badly f**ked things up and it is why Bernanke and the Fed know that confidence in the total financial system is the overriding concern which informs and requires a quick process in bringing the interest rate down quickly in the context of the US economy and in dealing with all aspects and ramifications of the subprime mortgages meltdown.

