Mason Jones (Reporter)
I AM considering applying for the soon to be vacated position of Governor of the Bank of England (BoE).
The incumbent, Mervyn King, has had enough of the cut and thrust of international finance and has decided to retire so as to spend more time with his own money.
However, I strongly suspect my curriculum vitae will be found wanting in certain areas of expertise regarded as essential for the job.
For a start, I have not been involved in reducing a world-leading national currency to the value of the peso.
As far as I am aware £5 notes are not actually being given away with packets of cornflakes (yet) but, given the rate of quantitative easing employed by the BoE, I predict that it won’t be long before some enterprising marketing executive at Kellogg comes up with the idea.
Next, I am entirely inexperienced in manipulating the Libor interest rate – that inter-bank lending mechanism about which nobody outside of the major financial institutions has even the faintest understating.
If I get to the interview stage I will explain that I am, like the current governor, prepared to learn how to ‘ignore’ the situation as long it doesn’t entail appearing before a Parliamentary Committee to explain myself or the reason why I was totally unaware of the activities of the people who worked for me, reported to me and enjoyed my company on numerous occasions when we had lunch together.
Despite my family interests, I will be able to claim absolutely no personal experience whatsoever in commercial banking, corporate finance, international currency exchange or money laundering.
I have never worked for or with Goldman Sachs or any of the many and varied banks that have collapsed for many and varied reasons.
I may be in favour of the UK adopting the euro but, on the other hand, I may not.
In short, I know very little about international finance, fiscal policy, the ECB or the IMF. I am probably the ideal candidate for the job.
