Your conventionally minded editor isn’t used to seeing a Federal Reserve chairman take his monetary policy show on the road. Then again, we’re from the old school, and we’re not used to seeing pigs fly either. But we’re obviously out of touch in the 21st century.
Ours is a world where formality gives way to “transparency,” which comes in an ever-widening rainbow of colors. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s “publicity tour” is certainly something new in the bag of central banking tricks. We thought that participating in so-called town hall forums and taking questions from the audience was an art reserved for politicians and talk-show hosts. We’re wrong. It’s also now just another tool in the otherwise dull business of managing money supply.
The old veneer of banking ceremony is fading, giving way to a penchant for empathy and personality tours. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that Mr. Bernanke was “disgusted” by some of the Fed’s recent actions, as he explained to an inquiring member of the audience in yesterday’s PBS television episode. Speaking of the various bailouts last fall, the Fed head confessed: “Nothing made me more angry than having to intervene, particularly in a few cases where companies took wild bets.” Perhaps he might have simply said that the devil made him do it. Personally, we’d have like to see some tears to make the confession more convincing.