Ben Bernanke: a minor left-wing academic

Outlook

(AP)

Earlier this week Ben Bernanke popped up on BBC’s Newsnight and related how unhelpful he had found excessive fiscal austerity policies by governments when he was Federal Reserve chair.

Probed by Evan Davis about his view on George Osborne’s austerity, “the Bernank” finally yielded this: “I’m not an expert… but it was a little tight earlier on and perhaps could have been done better.”

OK, it wasn’t a Paul Krugman-style denunciation of the Chancellor. But it’s nonetheless pretty clear where Bernanke stands: Mr Osborne’s front-loaded consolidation in 2010 was a mistake.

What if Mr Bernanke had voiced such an interesting opinion while he was still in office? Perhaps history, or the general election, would have been different.

Instead, we can now only savour the irony. In 2011 George Osborne dismissed criticism of his front-loaded consolidation with the put-down that “you can always assemble a group of left-wing academics to criticise what we are doing, but that doesn’t mean that is where the consensus of opinion is.”

Yes, that’s right, the marginal witterings of a handful of left-wing academics – and the most powerful single individual in the global economy.