Behind his white beard, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has a wry sense of humour. On reading his recent speech to the American Economic Association, in which he defended the Fed's actions during the housing bubble, I initially suspected it was a practical joke. Rather than conceding that he and his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, made a hash of things between 2002 and 2006, keeping interest rates too low for too long, he said the Fed's policies were reasonable and the main cause of the rise in house prices was not cheap money but lax supervision.
美聯準(Fed)主席班•柏南奇(Ben Bernanke)的白鬍子下，掩藏著一種扭曲的幽默感。閱讀他最近向美國經濟學會(American Economic Association)發表的演講時，我起初懷疑這是場惡作劇。他在演講中爲美聯準在住宅泡沫期間的行動進行了辯護。他非但沒有承認，2002年至2006年間，自己和前任前任艾倫•葛林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)將過低的利率維持了太長時間，致使局面變得一團糟，反而表示美聯準的政策是合理的，住宅價格上漲的主要原因不是廉價的資金，而是鬆懈的監督。