in monetary policy, others are tactical. and when you ’ re in a world where there are pretty big moves in ten - year rates, for example, trying to work out the appropriate response – it ’ s perfectly reasonable to have differences of view. and it ’ s perfectly reasonable for that to be heavily debated within the governing council. and then for that to be reflected in the public discussion, i think it ’ s fine. so it would not be accurate to say this is some kind of structural division. a lot of it was to do with – and i ’ m sure this is true also in the fomc – there ’ s an issue about under today ’ s conditions – not last month ’ s conditions, not next month ’ s conditions – what under today ’ s conditions is the best policy move. and here there was clearly a difference of views. but in the end the decision was taken and that ’ s the most important news story : to understand what this means, how this is going to permeate the financial system, how this is going to affect the real economy and affect the dynamics of inflation. we ’ re ready to open it to the audience q & a. i ’ m going to put one more question to you then we ’ ll do that. olivier blanchard was recently positing the idea that we ’ re potentially on the cusp of a paradox of thrift regime where, across the developed world with uber, 8 / 11 bis central bankers'speeches ultra - low rates, it ’ s an incentive for savers to in fact save more and stunt growth because they have such meagre returns on their investments. do you agree? so, let me say that when we ease monetary policy, or let ’ s say when there ’ s a cut in interest rates, one mechanism which olivier has referred to there is : how do people respond in terms of their savings behaviour to a lower interest rate. i think the bigger challenge is indirect : if the lower interest rates lead to more investment, more spending in the economy, then incomes go up. so let ’ s say you get a 5 percentage point increase in income. if you decide to save more of that, it ’ s still going to be partial, most of that increase in income goes through to consumption. i mean, the correlation is really high. when we look at what ’ s driving consumption, it ’ s is your income going up. the second question of “ are you, at

per se. and then there ’ s other issues to do with intellectual property rights, other elements which can be handled in different ways. of course, the world evolves, it ’ s not the case that you go forever without any revision in either trade regimes or other multilateral understandings, so let ’ s see what happens. but i think the uncertainty in itself, if it continues to be prolonged, it ’ s a problem. you ’ re about to get a new boss. as she ’ s been on the circuit this week talking about clouds on the horizon, trade is obviously a big concern for her. how involved is she with you now and getting to be where she officially takes office? now is late september, so she has a month before taking over on 1 november. i mean, we made this big decision in the september meeting. there will be a monetary policy decision in late october, so one week before, ten days or more before she comes. so i think it ’ s a very exciting time, the renewal in an organisation. with these eight - year renewals, you know it ’ s obviously a challenge. it ’ s also a great opportunity. obviously, mario draghi has been an exceptional leader, but christine lagarde i think is going to be exceptional also. she has such amazing experience, both at the imf and as french finance minister, and of course through those roles she ’ s been very involved in the european debate for many years. and whether it ’ s in the running of monetary policy or the wider role of the ecb in the european system, i think she ’ s going to be a really good leader. there are some pretty deep divisions within the governing council as there are now across the fed, the bank of japan as well, how do you expect lagarde to attack that, do you think we ’ re going to see a more activist ecb under her? of course, it ’ s always interesting and dramatic to focus on differences of view. the most important assessment in the september meeting was — after we had a joint assessment in july that inflation was below target – that was confirmed in september, and there was a very high degree of consensus that a monetary easing was required. so i think it ’ s exaggerated to say there are deep divisions. what is true is that, on individual elements of what we do, there are differences of view. some of which are kind of structural about the role of sovereign bond purchases