Gentle Ben Inside The Head Of The Fed

摘要

It's not always easy to listen to Senators bloviating. Yet last week Ben Bemanke, the mild-mannered economist who is approaching his six-month mark as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, looked as focused as a patient parent listening to a child. Tom Carper, a Senator from Delaware, took note of Bernanke's attentiveness. One departed Cabinet secretary, Carper said, used to appear before Congress and "sit there with papers spread all around him and read this and that." Not Bemanke. "You listen to everyone," Carper said in amazement. And so Carper couldn't help bringing up the obvious question: "What do you actually think about when we give our opening statements?"