“It’s pretty much a vote of no confidence in European officials,” said Richard Barwell, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, and a former Bank of England official. “Either the virus is already in the U.K. so they had to respond, or they don’t believe the problem will be sorted out. I lean toward the second because of how much they’ve done.”King’s refusal to wait for European governments signals determination to shield the U.K. from a crisis that threatens to tip Britain’s biggest trading partner into recession. It also shows concern that failure to protect bank funding markets risks recreating conditions that led to the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. three years ago.
Friday, 7 October 2011
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