, Columnist
The 'Bernanke Doctrine' Is Played Out
The zero interest-rate policy encouraged the world to take on huge quantities of debt.
Will she change course?
Photographer: Scott Eisen/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Making the rounds Tuesday ahead of the release of the paperback edition of his memoir “The Courage to Act,” former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke insisted that it was the working classes, not solely investors, who had benefited from unconventional monetary policy. In a CNBC interview, he commented that “the rich save more than the poor” in response to the assertion that low interest rates had harmed savers.
Odds are that outside his successor at the Fed and peers within the economics community, few would agree with that statement.