http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/magazine/20Ben-Bernanke-t.html

其中有一段特别有意思,据说JOHNSON当总统的时候,联储主席(MARTIN)不肯印钞票,JOHNSON就把他揍了一顿.

Martin ran into even tougher pressure from Lyndon B. Johnson, who tried to browbeat him into easing rates. One version of what occurred, according to Richard Fisher, the current head of the Dallas Fed, who has studied the history, is that “Lyndon took Martin to his ranch and asked the Secret Service to leave
the room. And he physically beat him, he slammed him against the wall, and said, ‘Martin, my boys are dying in Vietnam, and you won’t print the money I need.’ ” Martin ultimately caved. By the time he retired, in 1970, inflation was a worrisome 6 percent.

文章结尾:

Indeed, the United States has spent only 16 months of the last quarter-century in recession — a vast improvement over previous eras. The recent period has been called the Great Moderation; growth cycles have evened out, and inflation has abated in almost every country around the globe.

But will it work now? The Fed faces not only the twin demons of recession and inflation but also the specter that further rate cuts would cause foreign investors — who own more than $2 trillion of U.S. debt — to bail out, sending U.S. interest rates soaring. That, combined with the steadily worsening housing slump, could make for a long and nasty recession. And it would mark the end to the Great Moderation.

Perhaps the Great Moderation has been the result of good luck. Or perhaps it has been because of improved management skills —business learning not to overstock inventories, for example. Bernanke has written that it is something else. He sees it as a result, in large part, of better monetary policies. He says that central bankers have finally learned how to guide economies — not with mystique but with economic science. If that is so, we will not need a wizard behind the curtain anymore, only intelligent engineers who can steer markets to a promised land of rational expectations. To prove that he is right, Bernanke will need to minimize or, if possible, avoid the looming recession that looks ever more likely. It will not be easy. Bernanke’s education has just begun.