Ben Bernanke is one of the rare people to emerge from the financial crisis with their reputation enhanced. As the chairman of the US Federal Reserve from 2006 until 2014, he helped prevent a recession becoming a depression through policies such as ultra-low interest rates and quantitative easing (QE). Not everyone appreciated his efforts. “If this guy prints more money between now and the election . . . we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas,” the Republican former governor Rick Perry warned in 2011.
“I love being a civilian again,” Bernanke, 61, tells me when we meet at the Delaunay café in Aldwych, London. The former Princeton economics professor is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of a newly released memoir of the crisis, The Courage to Act. At a time of increasing economic pessimism, does he fear another crash? “The risk of a crisis like 2007 is relatively low,” says Bernanke, spooning the froth from his cappuccino. “Banks have much more capital, oversight is much tighter.” The most troubling trend, he says, is “the reaction of the other emerging-market economies to China’s slowdown”.
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