Welcome to the UK, Mark! I'm sure you are excited at the challenge of rescuing this country from the never-ending recession. Well best of luck to you. You are going to need all the advice and help you can get given the mess you're inheriting, courtesy of your predecessors at the Old Lady, and of course your once and future colleagues at Goldman Sachs and other prominent City firms.

I understand you are interested in acquiring British citizenship. You may be aware that, in order to do so, you will be required to swear (or affirm) an Oath of Allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen. This I did a few years back. You'll just love the citizenship test you're required to pass beforehand. It provides you the opportunity to learn some really useful trivia about the number of seats in the Welsh parliament, why Jamaicans excel at bus driving, and how no self-respecting village in this country can do without a pub, a post office and a curry house. (This last part is in need of updating as the pubs and post offices are rapidly disappearing. Fortunately the curry houses remain.)

Speaking of Her Majesty, you might be aware, having grown up in Canada, that her regal profile graces one side of your coinage and banknotes. Now why do you think that is? Is it because Her Majesty is proud of British and Commonwealth money? I suppose it is quite pretty with all those fancy colours and designs and all. Certainly nicer than those greenback dollars from the former colonies.

But perhaps, just perhaps, Her Majesty is also interested in the value of her coinage and banknotes. Perhaps her profile is there to demonstrate her sense of responsibility for maintaining trustworthy weights and measures, whether an imperial pound by weight, an imperial pint by volume, or an imperial pound sterling by value. Have you considered that possibility?

Now, those attending Weight Watchers classes might rather welcome a lightening of pounds, but I don’t think notoriously bibulous British beer drinkers would be amused were their pints to shrink in size. The EU has been trying to do that for years, because apparently 500ml measures are more European than obviously British imperial pints, at 568ml. They have failed, however, and if anything the effort has backfired, this being cited as one reason why the EU is falling out of popular favour in the UK.

Leaving the politics of pints aside for the moment, however, let’s focus on the economics: There is zero economic difference between a 20 percent increase in the price of a pint – roughly the QE-fueled inflation that has occurred post-2008 – and a 20 percent shrinkage in size. Indeed, this 20 percent inflation exceeds the roughly 12 percent reduction in pint size that would be required to shrink pints down to the 500ml European benchmark!

How do you think Her Majesty feels about this? Is she pleased that the currency graced by her image is being inflated away? That her weights and measures are being manipulated to favour failing financial firms over prudent savers? Is she even aware? Certainly someone must have brought this to her attention, although I suppose she doesn’t do much of her own shopping, be it for things measured in imperial, metric, or other units.

But many of us are aware, Mark. Some of us are even aware of the broader, insidious implications of inflation, in particular how it surreptitiously robs savers and enriches the financial system that creates it. Some of us who are aware have sworn the oath of allegiance to Her Majesty mentioned above. Does this not imply that we also have a duty to defend the sanctity of her weights and measures, including the pound sterling?

JUST IN CASE YOU DECIDE TO STABILISE THE POUND RATHER THAN DEBASE IT…

Although I doubt if you would agree, and you’re not a British subject yet in any case, were you to wish to actually defend the value of Her Majesty’s money, rather than accelerate its further debasement, how should you go about it?

It is so simple, Mark, so simple indeed, as simple as the name implies: Recall that the pound is, in fact, the pound sterling. This is because the value of a pound used to be fixed to that of one imperial pound of sterling-grade silver bullion. Subsequent to that, up until 1914, the pound sterling was linked to a fixed weight of gold.