It is always said that when US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sneezes, the entire world gets a cold and perhaps the speed at which the global financial crisis has spread from Washington to the rest of the world is clear evidence of this. Bernanke has lately said that the global repercussions of the crisis would be dreadful and the losses per second almost unbelievable. He also affirmed that the crisis would certainly end, but no one knew when, adding this is also linked to the strong measures taken by the different governments worldwide to protect their economies. Since the crisis broke out in his country on September 16, 2008, Bernanke has kept cutting interest rates on loans and deposits until they reached 0.25%, something which puzzled many economic experts – and not only them – across the world. This was not enough, though, as he decided some days ago to cut interest rates to 0%, something which had only happened in Japan in the 1980s. Meanwhile, interest rates on the pound sterling have kept falling until they reached its lowest level since the Bank of England was set up in 1694. If Mr. Bernanke replaced Dr. Farouk el-Okda as governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, would he try to tackle the crisis here through the same measures and decisions that he has been adopting in his country? I hope no one will consider what I am saying as something stupid. Almost 20 years ago, Saudi Arabia appointed a Pakistani economic expert as its central bank governor. Moreover, Egypt often resorts to doctors from abroad to treat its patients and we often hear that one of them has arrived in Egypt for this purpose or is ready to treat Egyptian patients in his or her hospital. These days, el-Okda is the doctor treating the Egyptian economy. Yet, many disagree with him on the way he is dealing with the symptoms of this disease, especially – though silently – the government's economic block, as it thinks that his persistence on not cutting interest rates on the Egyptian pound does not encourage or attract investments. When I imagine Bernanke as chairman of the Central Bank of Egypt, I do not mean to provoke Dr. el-Okda or spur him to justify his refusal. Instead, I want the government to quickly study alternatives should el-Okda not change his mind. What Bernanke will do in the future may puzzle us, but if we then carried it out here in Egypt, this would be a sort of economic treatment from abroad, as is the case with patients. If el-Okda wants to avoid specific repercussions and if the government's economic block wants to avoid other repercussions on the national economy, this is a healthy disagreement. The big question, though, is: what repercussions should we take into account and deal with first?
