rss feedGreenspan to Bernake: Parsing to criticizing
The Federal Reserve building stands in Washington, D.C. Photo source: David Pollitt's blog, dpollitt.net
I remember the days when Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had so much command of the U.S. economy – and respect - that journalists and observers would attend his speeches or Congressional testimony and parse every single word of his talk.
Did he just raise his eyebrow right after he stated that sentence? Was that a smile or a contemplative movement of the lip?
But when the times are tough (or tougher), questions intensify.
See article in The New York Times about the confirmation of Chairman Ben Bernake. Here’s a 2008 story about him from The New Yorker.
With Greenspan, though, there were tough questions for him as recently as 2007.
I remember thinking that Greenspan’s wife, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, couldn’t talk with others about what her husband might have told her.
Or, he might have kept his economic views only to himself.
In comparison, Bernake sat down for a televised town hall meeting on PBS last year.
As we all know by now, the times change.
My thanks to David Pollitt for taking a nice shot of the Federal Reserve building. His images have a great, artistic touch.
Yes, if the Federal Reserve is a bit too serious, I have written about badass tofu, spinning massage balls, Koko the gorilla and the stomp rocket.
UPDATE: You might have seen but the White House is expressing confidence in Bernake’s confirmation, according to this article in The New York Times. One topic that I overlooked: Um, how the markets might react to all of this.
