Bean unrepentant

This morning's FT carries an interview with Charlie Bean,the unfortunately named deputy governor of the Bank of England in which he says that

he is visibly energised by the challenges of dealing with a sudden loss of confidence in the economy.

Bean has had part of the blame for the current crisis laid at his door.Back in 2005 his vote tipped the balance for an interest rate cut but he is unrepetant

he estimates rates would have had to be 2 to 3 percentage points higher to have limited the build-up of credit and damped house prices and that would have had many other undesirable consequences for output and jobs.

He does however worry for the future

if every bank reins in its lending to viable companies, “the consequences are more failures, higher unemployment, lower demand, more defaults on loans, and that worsens the positions of the banks again”.