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.
美联储(Fed)主席本•伯南克(Ben Bernanke)的白胡子下，掩藏着一种扭曲的幽默感。阅读他最近向美国manbetx20客户端下载 学会(American Economic Association)发表的演讲时，我起初怀疑这是场恶作剧。他在演讲中为美联储在住宅泡沫期间的行动进行了辩护。他非但没有承认，2002年至2006年间，自己和前任前任艾伦•格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)将过低的利率维持了太长时间，致使局面变得一团糟，反而表示美联储的政策是合理的，住宅价格上涨的主要原因不是廉价的资金，而是松懈的监督。