Dear Rishi,
Long time no hear, how are you? And the wife and kids?
I have a question. I read this morning that our friends in the International Monetary Fund, the world’s overdraft bank, have created $650 billion in SDRs (you remember special drawing rights, that made-up currency they use that works as real money).
They’re doing it to give cash to the poor world to recover from the Covid Catastrophe. Good on them! But as SDRs get shared out mostly in proportion to their share of world economy poor countries will get about $275bn, and we rich will get the rest. Can you tell me what we’re doing with ours?
Here’s the thing, remember the IMF worked out in May that we could solve Covid for only $50bn? Well, if we have $375bn to spare, that we hadn’t budgeted for and have no expectation of using, then saving the world mightn’t be the worst use for it.
Only a bit of it’s ours in the UK, but a reasonable bit, and we could always strike a deal with some of the lads. Maybe the G7 crew? We did look like right tight scroungers when we had them round in June and couldn’t even find that down the back of the sofa. And we in the UK must’ve had our fill of looking a bit dippy for a while, no? Time to be proud of something for a change?
Anyway, it’s just a thought. Love to the missus (hey, her dad could probably stick in a billion or two if Brexit sucks up all our spares). Don’t work too hard 😉
Regards,
S