WILLEM BUITER was not the obvious choice to take over as chief economist at Citi, the giant American bank.
The 60-year-old, Dutch-born former member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee (MPC) and professor of economics at the London School of Economics had emerged as a scourge of bankers in the financial crisis.
On his "maverecon" blog, he wrote that banks that were too big to fail were too big and that for the government to invite Sir Win Bischoff, former chairman of Citi, to write a report on the future of Britain's financial services was "the most ridiculous appointment since Caligula appointed his favourite horse a consul".
That, however, is water under the bridge for Citi and for Buiter, who said he is "having a ball". Citi was so keen to get him that it relocated the post of chief economist for the bank from New York to London.
Last week, after speaking at his first big event for British investors at Citi's West End offices, he showed he does not intend to pull his punches.
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He believes, for example, that of the big economies America is the most likely to inflate its way out of debt.
"The US is not particularly capable of radical and swift action when a fiscal emergency arises because of the nature of its political system," he said.
"Reaching a workable consensus on burden sharing will be politically and constitutionally difficult. I still expect it to happen, but it is possible that the markets - the bond-market vigilantes - may have to fire some warning shots before the authorities raise taxes and cut spending by as much as they need to.
"The inflation option is on the table in the US as a reasonably low-probability event but as more than a tail event. If I were an investor in US government bonds it is something I would want to protect myself against."
Of the big central banks, the Federal Reserve is the least independent and the European Central Bank (ECB) most free of the danger of political interference, he said. "The ECB is independent on steroids," he said. "Short of sending the tanks into Frankfurt, the politicians can't do anything about it."
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That leaves the Bank of England and the MPC, of which he was a founder member, somewhere in the middle. He does not think the Bank would bow to political interference, or that any chancellor would invoke the government's reserve powers to take independence back. That, he said, would create the biggest run on sterling imaginable.
However, he is critical of the way the Bank has gone about quantitative easing. "They wanted to do it because that is all that is left once interest rates are at the lower bound," he said. "The decision to do £198 billion out of £200 billion through the purchase of gilts was just an honest mistake, not the result of political pressure.
"They should have done it through private securities to a much greater extent. They could have actively encouraged the issuance of covered bonds, gold-standard, asset-backed securities and commercial paper."
He also thinks that, of all the big central banks, the Bank of England will be first to raise interest rates, and will begin doing so this year.
"I think the Bank of England will raise rates," he said. "We're going to have 4% CPI [consumer price index] inflation before too long. They are at risk of not meeting the inflation target in a systematic way. I would be happy to see through the Vat changes, but if the currency weakens that is a monetary phenomenon in my view. You have to take the inflation target seriously."
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As for the wider world, Buiter sees challenges from sharply rising commodity prices, which he said is the only conceivable thing that could force an interest-rate rise from the ECB this year. He can also see the next big problem being created.
"We're going to have the mother of all booms, bubbles and busts in the Chinas of this world but not yet," he said.
"If you combine low interest rates here with high interest rates there, and a refusal to let the currencies of the rapidly growing emerging-market economies appreciate as they should, you have an emerging-market contribution to the boom and bust."