BOE Has 'Slim' Chance of Helping Loans, Goodhart Says
Bloomberg
23 Aprile 2008
Bank of England Governor Mervyn King's offer to swap bonds for mortgage securities won't fulfill the government's promise to help homebuyers, former policy maker Charles Goodhart said.
"The likelihood of getting the mortgage market going again is slim,'' said Goodhart, a founding member of the Monetary Policy Committee and now a professor at the London School of Economics, in a telephone interview yesterday.
"This just prevents things from getting worse. It's a backstop.''
King, backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is encouraging lenders to pass on the Bank of England's interest-rate cuts and thaw a mortgage market that's frozen up over the past month.
Failure will exacerbate the worst housing downturn since 1992 and risk pushing the economy into a recession.
The Bank of England said yesterday it will exchange about 50 billion pounds ($100 …
(L’articolo è disponibile previo sostegno)
