In the midst of a poor economic situation in the United Kingdom in November 2002, the Bank of England's deputy governor, Mervyn King, warned that the domestic economy was sufficiently imbalanced that it ran the risk of causing a "large negative demand shock" in the near future. At the London School of Economics, he elaborated by saying, "Beneath the surface of overall stability in the UK economy lies a remarkable imbalance between a buoyant consumer and housing sector, on the one hand, and weak external demand on the other."[2]